Extension Foiled!

So I had this big plan to extend the garden farther down the fence, towards the T.  There would be an extra 60 feet of garden on the opposite side of the fence, on top of the slope, and then an additional 70 feet, on the inside of the fence (the sidewalk side), where the fence is pretty grungy and bowed.  That extension #2 would be easy to plant, but is shaded by brush that's grown up on T land, so we'd have to cut back the scrub a little bit.

On Thursday afternoon, Nathan and I showed up to start digging a strip along the fence, knowing (from last Saturday's work day) that there were some bricks buried under there, but I thought it wouldn't be too bad.  However, the more we dug, the more it became clear that the bricks were a more serious problem than we thought.  It's not a just a few bricks in the fill, we actually discovered that there is some sort of massive brick retaining wall bracing the hill that carries the sidewalk.

What that means is that my fairly simple plan isn't going to work at all.  Other options would be to build raised beds (too complex and expensive) or to do container gardening, or perhaps use woolly pockets or some other grow bag type solution.  Containers or bags might work, but we don't have the budget for them at the moment and I'm not sure we can guarantee they wouldn't walk away.

I'm disappointed, because I'd had a grand vision for a 350 foot long stretch of green fence, as you walk up the hill from the T.  (Tracy pointed out that I'm already over committed from too many projects, so maybe a big extension wouldn't have been smart.)  But we already have quite a lot of plants going in to the regular 200 Foot Garden space, and that'll do for now.