Hit 200 sandbags for my desert retaining wall project

I set out to build a small retaining wall in my backyard and ended up hand-filling and stacking 200 sandbags last weekend. My back is killing me but the wall held against that flash flood we got Tuesday. Has anyone else gone way over their original estimate on a desert landscaping project?

3 comments

3 Comments

samrodriguez13d ago

lol "ended up" is doing a lot of heavy lifting there, I feel that. It's wild how desert projects always blow up like that. I've noticed a pattern out here where nothing is ever as simple as it looks because the ground is basically just hardpan and caliche pretending to be soil. You start thinking "oh, I'll just dig a little trench" and three hours later you're renting a jackhammer. 200 sandbags is no joke though, especially when you're hand filling them one by one. Bet that wall saved your whole yard from turning into a mud river.

scott.olivia13d ago

bEt that wall saved your whole yard from turning into a mud river" - oh man, you have no idea how close it was. I had to watch that whole first storm from my bedroom window, just praying the sandbags would hold. It's funny you mention the jackhammer because I totally had one of those moments too (actually broke my shovel on the first hole I tried to dig). The worst part is you think you're being smart by buying a few extra bags, but then you realize 200 is just the starting point for a decent barrier. I honestly feel for anyone who tries to do this stuff without having some backup plan or extra sandbags around.

-1

baker.christopher13d ago

One of my buddies tried this same thing with just 50 bags and a prayer. He was digging post holes for a retaining wall and hit a buried concrete slab nobody warned him about, spent the whole weekend with a sledgehammer chipping away at it. His neighbor came over and just laughed, said "welcome to the desert." Ended up borrowing my truck to haul like 80 more bags from the hardware store before the next rain.