This doesn’t exactly fall into the garden category, but it is out there and involves digging and I guess someday will retire to take on some kind of garden purpose, so here it is.
I wanted a sandbox for the kids and there was no way I was going to look at one of those stupid plastic turtles.  Plus I knew it would be around for a while, so I wanted something that could hold up for a couple of years.  Construction behind our house unearthed a couple nice large rocks, I had a couple slightly used bricks, and lo and behold a sandbox was born.

It’s a hole lined with bricks and a couple of stones are patched in.  The boulders are intended for seating, but I’ve never seen anyone over the age of 10 sit there.  I dug out the pit to a depth of around six inches and then filled it in with something like a million bags of sand.  Each spring I end up adding a dozen or so more bags to replace the sand that ends up in our house and in the kid’s beds.

It’s held up well, this will be year three.  The only problem so far happened on the day the boy and his equally disorderly cousin decided to play with hammers and started mining bricks and then cracking them apart.  Such is life.

…..and in case you’re wondering, no, the neighborhood cats do not use the sand for their business.  They far prefer my mulched flower beds.