Projectile living

The weather has been unfortunate this summer. Because of that, I’ve talked twice recently about how my outside projects were delayed. That weather is now on its summer break, and so, I’m not” We’re supposed to have days of sunny weather this week, so that (should) mean my projects will be back on track.

Tomorrow will the day most New Zealanders return to work after the two-week holiday period/ So, tomorrow is the first day I could recieve a call to schedule the installation of the roof over the patio. I’m not expecting that, but wouldn’t be surprised, either, but I’m not really expecting the installation until mid-January.

The only thing that really matters about the installation is that I have things that I must do before that, namely, I have to clear the stuff off the patio, and even a couple days notice will be enough for that. However, there’s one related project that will take extra time Preparing the new/old spot for the Vegepod raised garden. But I now what I’m going to do.

A little more than three years ago, I moved the Vegepod onto the patio because it was sinking into the grass. Sinking aside, that was a good spot: It’s warm, gets full afternoon sun, and as late as possible in summer, and it’s conveniently close to the patio doors so I can collect fresh herbs or whatever. Yeah, but that sinking, though.

My first plan was to put down pavers, something I’ve never done, but I was keen to have a go. Somewhere along the thinking process, I suddenly remembered what I’d planned to do at one point to create a place to store my rubbish and recycling wheelie bins, and that’s what I settled on doing under the Vegepod.

I’ll use a product called “SurePave” by a company called Strol (see the photo at right—and this is NOT an ad—I bought all my supplies at normal retail prices). The product is manufactured in Thames (not far from where Nigel and I lived 20 years ago), and is made of recycled plastic and is also recylable. It’s used to create a stable suirface to walk on or, in the case of the “heavy duty” version I picked, park on. The voids in the “honeycomb” can be filled with gravel or dirt with grass growing in the voids (there are several ways of doing that, and it’s sometimes called “grass paving” because when it blends in with lawns, but it’s also dytong enough to park on.

I was originally going to fill the voids with gravel, but just today I decided to use grass instead. That’s because I’m going to use gravel at the ends of the patio, and I felt that the grass paving under the Vegepod would be more subtle. The downside is that I'll have to pull the Vegepod off to mow underneath it, just as I did when it lived there before.

The reason I decided on the SurePave system was because it’s permeable—water can soak into the ground. If I’d gone with pavers, as I originally planned, it would’ve been impermeable and water would have to run onto the lawn to soak in—somewhere. With more rain and storms due to climate change, it made sense to me that I should make it easy for rain water to soak into the ground like normal.

Work on the new parking spot for the Vegepod starts tomorrow, but I doubt it’ll be ready until after the patio roof is installed, because the grass will need time to grow before I park it there. As long as I move the Vegepod around until the new spot is ready, it should be fine, with no sinking into the ground. If all else fails, I can park it on the patio if (when?) we get another extended rainy period.

And that’s the first project to get ready for the patio renovation project. I’ll have photos to share, of course, but right now I’m just glad the weather is finally cooperating.