Best laid plans. Again.

Not for the first time, my best laid plans have gone awry. I made plans, changed them, changed them again, and then ran into supply problems. And so, here I am.

Last Sunday, I talked about a project in by backyard to make a spot to put my Vegepod raised planter. I said that I decided to use grass instead of gravel, but that didn’t last. I changed my mind.

I had two issues. First, it would be at least a couple weeks before I could put the Vegepod on it, meaning I’d have to move it around a lot to keep it from sinking into the ground. Then, I looked at one of the company’s brochures and saw a photo of the grass option in use—and I hated it. It looked like an old-fashioned bumpy chenille bedspread, which would be okay for a parking area, but this would be roughly one square metre out of the entire lawn, and I felt it would look weird. Also, I realised that have to move it every time I mowed the back lawn would be a pain, and when I eventually hire mowers to do the back lawn, they probably wouldn’t move the Vegepod out of the way. None of that was ideal.

So, I went back to using gravel, and I studied up on what materials I needed to get, and today I finally had a chance to go to Bunnings, which has a much better selection of base course and gravel—except this time they didn’t. Base course, and sand they had, but they didn’t have gravel of the right size—the stones were wither too small or too big.

I’m going to have to source gravel, probably from a landscaping supply company, so that whole project is back on pause. What I think I’m likely to do is source enough gravel to use at the two ends of the patio, too (so it all matches). It shouldn’t take long to find the gravel, but I don’t want to have to store what I’ll need for the patio project, and I can really install that until the patio roof cover. Still, I may figure out a way if the patio cover is delayed.

There was one other development: I thought I’d made a mistake in calculating what I needed. I knew the Vegepod is one square metre, but a couple days after my Sunday post I realised that the two black plastic panels I bought were less one square metre, and because of the way they link to each other, I’d have to buy two more.

But then I thought, “hang on a minute…” and I grabbed a tape measure and went out to measure the stand it’s on, and that is 780mm by 780mm, which is, of course, smaller than one square metre, and it would fit on the two black plastic thingees I have (the Vegepod itself tapers down to its stand). Crisis averted! But I came to close to buying two more black thingees I didn’t need.

It’s not uncommon for me to revise plans for projects several times before I do them, and I’m also delayed by trying to figure out how to do one or parts of a project. However, this particular project has had more than its share of disruptions in a short period.

This isn’t a big deal. I have lots of other projects to work on, and most of them will be much easier.