Cristo Balete

I just thought of something else that is easier.  Green shade cloth.  I have some that is 30 years old and is as sturdy as the day I bought it.  

The beige version started falling apart in a few years, and I put that in the driveway, under gravel, and it has helped as road fabric.  Not worth the money.

You haven't mentioned gophers.  They eat through just about everything except concrete.

Michael, we have major mineral buildup, too.  Does high acid vinegar work?

To get mineral deposits off, after emptying the water out of the toilet, soak paper towel in 10% vinegar (kitchen vinegar is 5%), press onto the ceramic where the stains are, leave overnight, wipe off the deposits.

Then, after every flush, put 2 Tbsp 10% vinegar in the toilet water, and it really helps slow deposits reforming.  

Hey, guys, so glad to hear about the cornmeal bait.  I've been wanting to try it because the gophers and voles are just ruining everything.

Thanks, Maarten, for the info on the big PVC pipe.  Does it have to be a certain length?  Covered/hidden under sticks or anything?

I second the toilet paper tubes.  You can cut a paper towel tube in thirds as well.  

I put them in half-gallon milk cartons that have one side cut out, so they hold water.  I don't buy plastic milk cartons, just the carboard ones.  A little water in the bottom soaks up into the cardboard and the soil.  Plant the whole thing, no roots disturbed.

I feel too guilty to use peat moss, so I buy cactus mix in bags.  I put 1/3 at the bottom of my clay soil, because I want the roots to recognize it when they are transplanted.  The middle third is compost, and the top third the cactus mix.  

I don't fold the bottom of the tube up at all.  The milk carton keeps the soil in, and when the roots fill the tube the soil doesn't fall out.

It doesn't hurt to slice up the sides of the cardboard a little before planting, but chances are, if it has stayed damp, it will be starting to fall apart anyway.

I learned during the lockdown when there was a shortage of toilet paper, and the only stuff left on the shelf was the expensive stuff, that those tubes don't break down at all!!  Don't know why they are different, but they just didn't work for this application.

I have been having a great time planting soy beans.  They are hardy, verdant, attractive.  They are up in a week and just take off after that.  They fix nitrogen, bees love them.  You can eat them, save some seeds, have them everywhere.  Even the gophers seem to ignore them.  When they are done I clip them off at ground level, compost the tops and leave the nitrogen-fixing roots in the soil to break down.

They keep my spirits up when other crises are happening.

You can line the bottom with large concrete pavers, or pour concrete about 3" thick on the bottom.   I think bricks might wiggle out of place, but if you've got a cheap supply, since those in the gravel as much as possible.

I've started doing dry-pour concrete for most of my pads.  This would take a few days in your situation, (it can take a month if it's a car or tailer pad, since concrete needs to cure, regardless of how it got there.)  But you just need it to solidify.  I think the beds are deep enough that the alkalinity won't matter, it will be outweighed by the organic mix of the soil/compost/mulch.  

Pour out the powder from the bag, keep it about 3 inches thick, level it with the back of a rake, then with a fuzzy paint roller and that gets it pretty even.  Then, this is important, just mist (not sprinkle) the top layer with water from a hose or a  mist sprayer until it's shiny.  This creates a crust.  slowly you will add water until it permeates the 3" thickness of powder.   Then wait 20 minutes, mist it again.  Every 20 minutes mist it until it's shiny for 5 or 6 times.  Cover it, keep the sun off it, let it sit overnight, then sprinkle it with water from the hose at least 3 more times 20 minutes apart.  If you can touch it with your finger and it doesn't give, let the water run gently all across the top until it's shiny.    Repeat throughout the day several times, keep it covered.  When it feels really solid in a few days after repeated soakings, then it's probably safe to add the soil.

I've done dry-pour for a car parking spot.  I spent a month after spreading 4" of powder, putting wire mesh in the center of the powder, wetting it down a couple times a day, keeping it covered, made sure it was solid, starting to cure, and could support the weight of a vehicle.  That was two years ago, and there's not a crack in it, it looks great.

the nice thing about dry pour is if you get interrupted it's no problem.  It's not as heavy as wet concrete.  You can walk on it gently if you need to, but it should be resmoothed if you do.  I did a wide pad under an arbor in my garden and couldn't reach the backside of it, since it was next to a fence, but walking on it was fine.

Check it out on YouTube.  

One more thing, I go around in the spring/early summer and check all of the likely places for nests, under eaves, solar panels, etc., and if I catch thenests at the golf ball or baseball size I can just knock them off with a 10-foot length of PVC pipe after dark.  It's usually just one worker at that point, maybe a slow queen inside.  If it leaves an outline of a nest after it falls off, they won't build there again.

Wow, didn't know about hornets/wasps active at night!  That's all we need!

We got about a 2-foot paper nest like that under a solar panel that is on a post in the ground.  They love underneath those things.  

The best solution I've found is paint the underside or eaves or solar panels blue, the color of the sky mid-morning in March or April before they have a chance to start building.  The shade of blue has a lot of grey in it where I am.  The color might surprise you so get as close as possible to the right shade of blue.  It's the darndest thing, they are fooled!  At least mine are.  Their absolute favorite place was under the eaves of a shed that faced south (in the Northern Hemisphere,) and every year it was a struggle.  It's been more than 10 years since I painted that blue and no more paper nests there.

The other thing I've found is in Feb-March find where the potential queens overwinter.  It's often in a pile of wood, a stack of rocks or slate, or in a door frame of a shed, behind window trim that has a gap (I caulked all of these shut.)  They might also be the ground hornets/wasps, which I try to keep at a minimum.  I've done this for 30+ years and there's no shortage of them, but they aren't everywhere like they used to be.

And very brave Scrub Jays will tear apart a paper nest.  I have made friends with my Scrub Jays, I feed them a peanut every morning to keep them around.  The dominant male comes every morning to get his peanut.  The females aren't allowed to get peanuts, interestingly.  One female mate wanted her own peanut, and her mate caught up with her and smacked her with his wing.  That didn't stop her, though.  We worked out a secret place for her to get her peanut.  She was smart and feisty!!

The Scrub Jays have also torn apart big nests that are on branches that overhang pond water that I couldn't get to.  I thought it would be a really rough fall, when the wasps/hornets are really crabby and don't ask questions before they sting.  But the Scrub Jays tore that nest to pieces.  It was impressive.

On the upside, bee/hornet venom is often beneficial against arthritis, apitherapy.  I guess not if you're allergic, but ....

Billy, what do you intend to do with this pad?  Is it for a shed, a house, a parking spot?

The main consideration for any rock foundation is what kind of soil, specifically, you have, how it's going to support rock.   Is the intended location of the pad going to be affected by ground, and/or surface water in a very rainy year?