| We are just about ready to start bring in fill dirt and top soil for the mountain and yard. First we edged the pathways with 6" X 12" X 2" concrete blocks placed on edge. These gave us a good surface to put the dirt up against. We used this technique for all the paths. We also built some rock retaining walls for gardens. We did all of this before we started to move in the dirt so we would know where it goes and how deep it needs to be. We knew that our paths would be 5/8" minus crushed rock. It would have made moving dirt easier with the path in but we didn't want to spill dirt all over the path so we waited on the crushed rock. Because of the layout of our property we had to move all the materials from the front of the house to the back yard by hand using a wheel borrow. Here's a little tip. If you don't have a bunch of help available look up one of the job services that help people out. We used the Millionaires Club of Seattle for our laborers. They were inexpensive, worked hard, gave them some income and saved my back. For our little project we moved 110 yards of dirt and 7 1/2 tons of crushed rock and I don't know how many tons of "one man" rocks. Once we got all the dirt in place we brought in a water barrel roller to help compress it. We rolled the entire area several times and kept adding dirt to get it to the correct level. It's always good to go a little above your final level since it will settle with time.  After all the leveling was done then we brought in the crushed rock. We did the same with it by rolling, filling and rolling again. This worked really good and made sure that the path would stay for years to come. If you live in an area where the ground is a lot softer than ours you may need to bring in one of those small gas engine tampers to get your path set really solid. |