"Which base material should I use? " Use the CR6. When delivered this select base material should be composed of mostly uniform crushed rock around 3/4 inch size along with fines; a grit and rock powder sufficient to fill the voids between the larger aggregate. "Is 4 inches of base material enough? " The answer is probably not, but that depends on a lot of other factors; type of subsoil under the base, expected moisture levels in the subsoil, freeze depth in winter, and weight of the vehicles using the pad. Even 8 inches of base won't work well where the subsoil becomes saturated during wet periods. "Whats the worst that could happen if its not? " Expect pot holes to develop. The select base material will begin to intermix with the subsoil and lose it's strength. The surface will become uneven and the gravel top coat will intermix with the base and shift to expose the base in areas. Under freeze/ thaw conditions the pad may fail and become a mud pit.

If ground is workable, you can plant now for harvest in spring and cover with plastic over hoops. I would direct seed to avoid transplant shock (contrast of warm house to cold ground is too extreme). To get winter harvests you will need to plant earlier in the fall. Plants grow VERY slowly during winter months -- especially little seedlings. I've had good luck growing pots of arugula indoors in south facing windows. It satisfys that craving to grow something green! Mache grows more slowly so may be a little frustrating to grow indoors.

No coldframe today since it's too windy to tempt me outside to work, but I looked at the weather for next week and I think that's it for winter. I suspect I will have a crocus blooming by the end of the week. The warm weather Wednesday and Thursday of last week brought all the tulips up and the daffs are all sprouting too. It was cold last night but I don't see anything in the near future that is close to that. We'll be planting seeds and cutting grass before we know it.

We have had good experiences with the crews for the kitchen reno and the kitchen floor plus family room reno. In both cases they were tidy workers who cleaned up including sweeping at the end of each day. They ate lunch out or at the patio table and cleaned up afterward. We never had to clean up after them. When we mentioned to the GC of the family room job that our grandkids were going to be up for the weekend, he had his guys do an extra through clean-up including double checking around the patio in case any nails went astray. Both GCs told us what to expect for work times for the next day or two and generally the workers arrived on time. Of course there was the rare exception here and there like the time that the flooring guy coming to fix a scrape in the floor misunderstood and went to the wrong job (where he had a frustrating time trying to find what he was suppose to fix). Nobody ever harmed any of our landscaping. Perhaps it helps that there was a good size concrete patio to do any work at the family room door. The GC for the main kitchen remodel set expectations for his crew's behavior and they met them. I assumed that they would use the powder room, but he insisted on bringing in a porta potty. He also asked us to take the pictures down from the non-kitchen side of kitchen walls. The very few times that they had to be out of the kitchen family room to do something, they asked first. Other than that, they were only in there and on the patio outside the kitchen. For any messy work, the doors to that area were covered with plastic and taped - very little dust ever made it through that so the rest of the house stayed clean. I don't know what music they played - I was at work. I was working from home when we did the family room remodel and my office is on the other side of the wall, though there are closets on that side which deaden the noise a bit. If they played music or listened to the radio, they kept it quiet enough to not be heard in my office. The only noise that I heard was essential remodeling noise - especially the demo of the very thick "mud" left from a prior tile floor. Security precautions: I wouldn't leave pocket size expensive items lying around. My mother taught me that it was wrong to tempt workers by leaving such stuff out. But we didn't hide things like TVs and computers. Of course we kept them well away from the dangers of the work zone. For the kitchen remodel, we double keyed the patio door and gave the GC the key that opened only that door. Once the project was finished, we re-keyed it to use only our house key. That way, we didn't have to worry about someone making and keeping a copy of the key to use after the job was over. Between our planning - e.g. setting up a temporary kitchen and freezing some made ahead meals for the kitchen remodel and rearranging the living room for the entertainment equipment during the family room work - and their consideration, we were pretty comfortable during the remodels.