My sideyard. It was impossible to keep the St Augustine nice because we have moles that come out of the field in the back. So voila! no more moles! In my situation gravel is a no-brainer. I would not go back to grass. My backyard. The gravel was put down in the spring of 2008. I put brick edging down in this spring. This is called spurge. I hate it. If left alone it gets to be 2' across and reseeds terribly. I just used RoundUp in the front circle after I let it get out of hand. I have bought Halts to prevent this in the future but haven't put it out yet. This one is about 5" across and comes out easily. This is the type of weed I get in the backyard. It pulls out easily. I found 2 of them when I was taking photos today. They're not a problem. This one is about 3" tall. It just rained, and you can see the gray color darkens when wet. The grass on the left is not on my property. It's part of the water retention area, but I planted it and mow it. It's the only grass I will have soon. My front garden. This photo was taken before I mulched in May so I'm embarrassed that it's not pretty. It's called crushed granite, and stones are 1/2" and smaller. I laid 15-year weed cloth from Lowe's under it. The gravel is about 2"-3" thick. You can make it thicker if you want. I push a wheelbarrow on it without a problem. After you first spread it, it will feel a little squishy under your feet, but when you hose it down well, the dust washes down and the gravel will lock into it and the jagged cuts of the gravel lock into themselves, making it very solid and easy to walk on - but NOT with bear feet. You can see I have oak trees, and they drop leaves constantly it seems. It surprised me how well the blower works on the gravel to get rid of the leaves. You can't blow straight down, but if you do, the damage is easily smoothed out with your foot. I use oak leaves for mulch so they're always blowing around. Gravel in my yard is as close to maintenance free as you can get short of pavement. I have one last strip of grass alongside the driveway which is coming out in the fall. I would not use it without weedcloth, but it doesn't migrate into the beds even without the edging. It does look better with edging. Hope this is helpful. They use this stuff in parking lots a lot. BTW, I bought what they called "contaminated granite". It had pieces of limestone in it whether by accident or on purpose I don't know. But regular crushed granite was $60 a yard, and this was $35. To me the few white rocks scattered around don't look bad, aren't really noticeable. Sherry

You have a ton of options with your requirements. I'd recommend separating any 1 time requirements (like digging) from those you will do all the time. A good technique might be to list your top 5 jobs and match implement to that job then see what tractor matches the implement. Perhaps you can offset some costs if your willing to keep push mowing instead of buying a mid mount mower. At that price point buy something that will last a long time and is reliable. You will only be frustrated if it won't hold up to your use. The Kubota GR2100 is an excellent choice. A johnny bucket with a tiller or box blade will do a lot of landscaping chores. Also check out their electric sleeve hitch which will give you some down pressure. The entry level Simplicity Legacy XL retails at $7995 without a deck and would be my recommendation. The Cub 3000 or 5000 would also be good choices. The Deere X500 doesn't have a JB available at this time. Visit some dealers in your area to see what you are comfortable with. Unless you are set on new or pressured for time usually you can buy more capability used with your dollars, but it does take some searching. Good luck

I'm a believer in 'Do what works' and garden around all the inconveniences of country life. My garden evolved years before I came along here. Some of the changes were so small, like making the driveway circle around in front of the tractor shed instead of going up a little slope that always washed out in a hard rain. It took months of constructive staring to figure out that simple change, and about half a day to change the drive, fill in the wash and plant centipede grass to stop the erosion. The nice tree line at the north side used to be a pasture fence. When DH was having some bulldozer work done some 20 years, I suggested leaving the young established trees that had come up in the fence row. Now we have three mature pecans, two deciduous oaks, and a live oak. I curved on around toward the back with two shrub islands with crape myrtles and loropetalum with a space in between wide enough for a tractor to glide through. There's a field road on the outside with fruit trees beyond. Everything is planted with an eye toward mowing. Another garden point is the space under nut trees. You can't pick up pecans in a shrub bed, but spring daffodils are gone underground when pecans fall. Thank you for all the nice things you've said about my garden. It's a place for an old lady to play and the dog and cat to roam with the birds and butterflies. Did I tell you all that Buffy treed a raccoon the other day? She also caught a squirrel, whose remains I gave a decent burial with the cat in attendance. Nell

The paths between your beds should be at least three feet wide. If this seems like a lot of wasted space, imagine kneeling down to work on a 1-2' wide path, or maneuvering your wheelbarrow along skinny paths without damaging your plants. Larger pathways are much more comfortable to work with, and are one of just four improvements that Mel has made on his method since his book was published over 20 years ago. (See his website for the other updates to his method.) Your budget, your aesthetic preferences, and available materials will determine what you use for the paths between your raised beds. Here are a few ideas: Any fancy material typically used for a sidewalk or paved garden path can be used, including flagstone paths, concrete pavers, bricks, etc. set into concrete, sand, gravel, rock screenings, etc. There are multiple sites on the Internet that give detailed descriptions of how to construct these kinds of paths. Grass, edged along the beds with a weedeater or square-bladed shovel. Paths made from broken-up concrete slabs (free if you're willing to scrounge) set into grass, sand, gravel, or rock screenings. Organic materials (hay, wood chips, grass clippings, etc) over dampened cardboard boxes or newspaper. The cardboard/newspaper blocks weeds, and the whole mess gradually breaks down and will need to be replenished every year or so. One GW member rakes up the breaking-down materials and uses it as a fall/winter mulch for her beds, then places fresh materials down to start breaking down over the winter. If you want a super-permanent path between your square foot beds, take a look at some of the nifty concrete molds available at home improvement stores. They come in many different patterns (random stone, slate and herringbone brick, just to name a few) and are quite easy to use. Depending on the design you choose, they can be used for straight or curved paths.