Then I moved to this hilly place. The previous owners had a garden on the one relatively flat spot. There was plenty of slope, allowing most of the topsoil to wash off, leaving clay subsoil on the top end. I suspect they ran the tiller to maximize runoff.
Stuck with the stupid slope, I had to build some terraces or give up having fresh vegetables. Money was a non-existant object, so I had to use what was on hand. Those folks, whom I will call The Foulers, left plenty of stuff behind. Most was trash, but there was a pile down behind one of the outbuildings that I call My Home Depot, an endless source of iffy but free building materials.
I dragged out some long pieces of aluminum soffit and galvanized chain link fence top railing poles. Cutting the poles with a hacksaw was not the work of an instant. I also found some short lengths of rebar and other rusy metal rods that might work.
The best location to stop the topsoil exodus was diagonal to the garden fence I'd put up earlier. Along a stretched-out string, I pounded the assorted posts at two foot intervals. I installed the aluminum barrier on the uphill side and wired it to the posts. Some of the posts stuck up quite a ways, though. They had the look of Meanies that would poke me in the backside the first chance my back was turned.
What was required was a protective cap of some sort. My son had picked up a big box of clay pots for me at an auction. Upside-down, the pots made great caps, along with some old glass insulators and china bed knobs.
What had started out as a safety precaution took on a life of its own and became a theme. More clay pots went on the tops of the mismatched fence posts. Thus, the various types of fencing that I had used on the periphery of the garden changed from junky to eclectic creations.
Too cute!
