Mow strip project

I hired Nick to help me bust out the mow strip project.  I'd been thinking for a couple seasons about something to keep the lawn from growing into the reclaimed concrete borders in the front yard.  I had dug the trenches a few weeks ago, using most of the dirt to even out the low spots in the front yard and fill the holes left by The Great Organic Dandelion Eradication of 2014.

Here's the trench:

We leveled out the dirt in the bottom of the trench and placed pieces of broken concrete at the bottom of the prepared trenches.  We then filled the large negative spaces with some red rock we got from Rob's boss, leftover from a job.  Hooray recycling!  Next came chunks of white porcelain.  Where can you get chunks of white porcelain?  Hire your 13-year-old nephew to take a sledgehammer to the old toilet you've had in back part of the yard for five years.  Easy peasy!  Nick had a blast throwing huge rocks though the toilet and busting up the remaining pieces with the sledge.

Here comes the pea gravel!

We swept all the pea gravel into any voids we could see and walked over the whole conglomeration several times to settle it further.  Finally covered the whole trenched area in dry concrete, dumped Dixie cup by Dixie cup...much to Nick's chagrin.  Now, add gently sprinkled water.

Voila!

The finished product!  I'm generally satisfied with the result.  I'm excited to see how it holds up!  Here's the breakdown on cost:

1.  Concrete chunks - upcycled from my own old driveway rehab project years ago, along with some from the lady up the road's projects...FREE

2.  Red rock - FREE

3.  Porcelain chunks, super-upcycled from old toilet...and yes, the ENTIRE toilet is now resting in piece (snicker) in my front yard - FREE

4.  Two bags of pea gravel from Lowe's - $3 each

5.  3/4 bag of 60# of concrete - $4

Total - about $10, radical.