Partitioning the North Pit

With the master landscape plan in hand, I know what to do with the North Pit. Next to the raised garden, we want a walk-way, similar to the walk-way around the back deck.

The back part, between the fence and the raised garden is already basically in place. We have a cement wall under the fence and the whole area is filled with rock. Now we want something similar next to the raised garden and the North Pit.

The first step is to dig out the remaining dirt next to the raised garden.



Next we need to build the wall that will separate the North Pit from the rock-filled walk-way. We first clear a path for it.



We could pour a pure concrete wall, but computing it out, it appears to be less expensive to use concrete blocks. The concrete blocks are 8 x 16 x 4 inches. With the limestone block on top, the wall should be about 20 inches tall. With blocks of 8 inches, I can do 16 or 24, but not 20. So I figure I'll pour about a 4 inch base in concrete, which will even out the uneven rock surface and give us the right height.



Once the cement base has set, I can mortar on the cement blocks. I leave a gap in the lower rank of cement blocks, in case water needs to flow from one side to the other. This is not expected to be a problem, but just in case. I can't finish the entire wall, since it needs to tie into a similar structure that I haven't excavated yet.



Once the wall sets, I can put all the rocks on the right side and start to spread the dirt on the left side.