Perhaps it would be more acccurate to say “someone there is who doesn’t love a lawn: me”
The lawn of the American house is a new thing. Before the advent of the gasoline mower it really was difficult to keep a perfect mono-culture going in the yard. In rural areas you could always use ruminant power, but your average farmer probably had more pressing concerns than the grass in front of the house..
I manage with my reel mower mostly. Sometimes I feel like I’m just punishing the grass rather than actually cutting it, but I usually keep the non-garden portion of the grounds to under four inches of greenery height.
I foster a diverse poly-culture. That is to say, there are many non-perrenial non-grass organisms in my lawn. Some of them I really have little problem with. Clover is a legume. It’s lovely and a perrenial. Crab grass. Well, at least it doesn’t bite. The attitude that all grass that does not conform to some species purity rule must be annihilated just seems a bit wrong headed to me. It reminds me of some bad times mid-century.
Basically, I just don’t like maintaining grass. So lawns and I don’t get along.
My solution to this problem is to put garden beds everywhere. Unfortunately, the boss feels that the children might like some place to play. I say “give ’em hoes, and teach ’em to weed.”
I suppose she is right they need exercise. So until they leave for college or juvenile detention, I will be eyeing that “playstructure” and the surrounding 20 feet jealously.
They’re not having fun, they just do this to taunt me.
To be fair, the play structure is in the shadiest part of the lawn and hard upon the compost heap. But the area between the child-watchfulness bench (seen in the aerial photos in many of these blog entries) and the play structure is prime, flat real estate.
It is off limits. For now. I’m trying to get the 3 year old into kindergarden early thus hastening college (or juvie) and the day I get to expand the gardens.
Oh yeah, that’s cute.
For now I’m trying something new and unlikely: terracing. A terrace anyway.
I’m going to put a garden bed on this hill:
This first year I’ll probably plant beans followed by a green manure to get the spot ready.
Green manure doesn’t sound so good. Manure = poop, so green is ick. But really it just means using plants to build or hold the soil when a crop isn’t in place. Legumes will add nitrogen and other, like rye, will hold the soil and build organic matter.
I’ve had gardens in four houses in two states and so far I add a bed every year. I really can’t face spring without it. This year I’m going to change my style. I’m going to imitate a permaculture trick and try to turn a piece of yard into a bed. Here’s a little video done by a UMass group on creating permaculture beds. They put this in in the fall so had five months until planting. I figure I’ve got 2. I’ve made some changes: aerate the soil, three layers of newspaper (instead of cardboard), a thick layer of compost, and horse manure.
I use a broadfork to do the aeration. Sorry I don’t have an action pic, but really people don’t want to see me in action anyway.
Luckily, somebody has been delivering individually wrapped newspaper to my house all winter. I’m not sure what’s in the publication, but it works just like a real newspaper.
Talk about burying the lead. Ouch.
Here you see some papers fixin’ to get covered with compost. Note the miniature retaining wall I built. I borrowed the timber from the neighbor. Her son broke his arm falling on them and so they are no longer in good odor.
And finally some horse poop that comes from a nearby stable. In general horse poop is not a good idea for the garden as it’s too “hot.” Plants absorb too much nitrogen too quickly. The other problem is that bedding often has a lot of sawdust and can lead to the exact opposite problem: too much carbon means the microorganisms breaking down the poop lock up all the nitrogen. I’m hoping that a few months of rain and composting will leave me with a nice bed.
So that’s my version of sheet mulching and sort of terracing. We’ll see how it goes. If poorly I’ll probably pretend it never happened.
Keep digging.
