A Small Thyme Project

This was my idea...I wanted to plant creeping thyme around the slab at the bottom of a flight of stairs going up to the veggie garden. We had thought about putting it in the grooves between all the slabs in the patio, but not knowing how well it would work, we opted for paver bricks except for around this one landing stone at the bottom of the stairs. 

'Dirt' is not a description of what we had to work with. We had to take away all the river stones that were initially everywhere. Then we had to remove the layer of leaves, fire debris cement chips from the paver project and finally a thin layer of compacted clay. Underneath that was a layer of weed cloth and beneath that was a layer of gravel which can be seen on the bottom step.

Finally new good dirt went in, holes for the plants were dug and the thyme plants were finally planted. I saw this as my little project, but it was 90 degrees F out there and I came inside red faced and sweaty after the leaf and loose dirt layer. John took it upon himself to clear out the weed cloth, dig the holes (with a digging iron) and plant the plants. 

He did a wonderful job, but I wasn't too happy with him wielding the heavy digging iron. As it would have been the fourteenth time I had suggested that he might not want to carry heavy stuff, I didn't bother to say anything when I found the digging iron on the ground. As somebody once said..."You buy 'em books and buy 'em books and all they do is eat the covers"....