The gap between my food forest and growing plot is tiny. When the golden dead nettles finish blooming, this is supposed to be a path. To get the cart from one plot to the other, I have to remove part of the very old fence.The old fence itself is no problem to remove. But there is a barrier dug in at the bottom.

Note: The video version of this post gets released on Monday, May 20.

The gap between my food forest and growing plot is tiny. When the golden dead nettles finish blooming, this is supposed to be a path. The old fence is no problem to remove. But there is a barrier dug in at the bottom.

Okay, why am I moving the compost again?

I need a way to get the cart from one garden to the other, so I am opening up the now redundant fence that connects my two plots. And that means, I need to move the compost. But I just need a way to get the cart from one land to the other because I can’t store it on the garden plot where I need it the most, so I need at least an easy way to get it home.

I don’t know what this bush is, so I will only trim it for now. It nicely hides the fence post.

Everywhere I move things, I find ants. I don’t know enough about ants (yet) to tell you the species. But we think they are black garden ants which I would not consider a pest or problem. After each layer, I gave them time to carry off the brood and food.

To move the compost, I needed the cart, so I had to lift it over the fence one final time. I really won’t miss this.

Pepper, meanwhile, enjoyed the new access to the compost. The compost would be open a while, so this would become a theme…

Pepper chilled in the shade while I loaded the cart. Sorry for the giant logo. I keep forgetting to bring tape.

Once I’d essentially excavated the ants, I got the shovel to move more quickly where possible. I have some fence left from the previous owner. I’m hoping to set it up between the two plastic compost bins.

My dad gave me this dump card for my birthday last December. I really think it’s the perfect one for me. Using an unstable wheel barrow isn’t always possible with my equally unstable joints.

I moved as much of the compost as possible without messing with the ants more than necessary. This path will have some of my most fertile soil. Ah, well.

But there was still the annoying barrier in the way. It had been dug in deep–or long ago. I grabbed the crow bar to get an idea of the depth. It was in pretty thoroughly. I accepted that I’d have to dig it out and got to work.

This fence was built multiple decades ago. No one has cared for it in at least 8 years. The thick fence posts are loose. The fence itself is rusty all over and damaged in places. I would not ignore any of this if this was my land for more than a short few years.

I am putting a lot of work into this land that isn’t mine, so I have to pick my battles. Fencing isn’t one of them. I’ll focus on growing food, learning, and leaving this land in better shape than I found it.

The annoying barrier was stuck pretty well. But there was no way I’d give up now that it was wobbling this much.

And in the end, I won against the thing. It did break off instead of coming out in one piece but that’s fine with me. I only needed the path free, so the other piece could stay in place.

I evened things out a bit to make it usable for now. I’ll do a more thorough job later. For now, getting the cart through is enough. I still have a lot of moving boxes in the garden house, so I decided to use them to cover the compost and ants.

Proof of concept.

The path is done, at least for now. I know I have to even it out. I know this doesn’t work. But I don’t want to kill all the Golden Dead Nettles, because they are so delicious. So, I am just going to wait a few days on that task. I have enough things to do. This will work to get the wagon up and down. So, yeah, let me dump the rest of the compost. And then I’m gonna go home.

I would make a joke about doing this one-handed but it will age poorly. I am editing this with a splint on one hand. The lid on this rain barrel is on pretty tight. Putting it back on is equally annoying.

A week after setting up the rain gutters (yes, I need to finish the system…), I’ll fall into this rain barrel. It was my first real garden accident. I was really lucky with my injuries.

After pumping the water out of this then overflowing barrel, I was too lazy to bend down and close the lid. I severely bruised my thigh and overextended my finger. I hurt badly but nothing was broken. As I edit this, I am on the mend with only a few weeks of one-handed work.

But for now, everything looked great. And I was content with my work for the day. No more cart lifting. In a few days, when the path-side snacks are past their prime, I’ll widen the path.

So long, and thank you all for being here! I appreciate you all more than I can express. The little community around this channel makes me so happy!