Wednesday we put the finishing touches on the soil in the "Far East" in the back yard. It took about a week to prepare about a 5 foot by 15 foot section of the back yard.
That's slow progress, too slow if it remained that consistent. But the "Far East" was the worst area for rocks and asphalt. I do not expect such slow progress in the future.
I didn't find as much asphalt as I had expected. That's great news. It shows that all the hard work digging out the asphalt and stuff was providing dividends. I did empty out the one gallon bin used for plants six or seven times. Also I dug out one complete red brick, two half bricks and the broken pieces of the two half bricks. I also found two large round decorative stones with these bricks.
Here's a picture of my wife using the Mantis on the "Far East"...
The blue tarp covers the remaining compost.
On Thursday I turned an area of about 9 feet by 9 feet filled with grass. I had turned this area last year and the grass was plucked out of it. After that, nothing happened except the grass came back. So we're starting over with this new plantable area once my wife picks out the grass.
I moved some materials (wood, a hay bale and such) that were east of the lemon tree to the recently turned "Far East". This will be the next area I turn. This area does have a few rocks but not nearly as much as the "Far East" had. While we didn't plant in this area last year I still don't think turning it will be too bad.
I added a small wheelbarrow full of compost to the "South Garden". I didn't turn it, I just laid it on top.
Nothing was done with the back yard today.
This morning I got five more tomatoes into the ground in the backyard cutout area. These five tomatoes are Giant Syrian, Japanese Black Trifele, Thessaloniki, Crimson Cushion and Carmello.
Last year I spent a great deal of time digging holes and removing rocks and asphalt from the "Far East" area of our backyard -- the area to the east of our grass area (and grass cutout area) near our eastern fence. The results of hours and hours of digging was dramatic. This area was near spectacular, and I'd argue even slightly better than our signature area, the "koi pond" in the front yard. Prior years in the "Far East" were, at best, mediocre.
So what's the point? I had realized that our backyard cutout area (where we planted today's five tomato seedlings) has done reasonably well, but nothing that has knocked our socks off. But then again, not bad either. It's my supposition that this area may have asphalt in the soil (which I knew to be true already), just not as concentrated as the "Far East".
So I dug as keep as I could go for these five holes. Two were done on Saturday, three today. And my findings were consistent with my theory. There were significant amounts of asphalt to throw away, but the concentration wasn't as heavy as in the "Far East". The soil below Japanese Black Trifele had the biggest pieces -- a couple were as wide (and thicker) than hamburger patties.
So we only planted five new tomato seedlings in this area. But note, it will be harder to plant these five tomatoes than it will be to plant the whole front yard. There's no buried asphalt there and the soil has been previously dug out and replaced.
