Lawn begone!
The Victoria Day long weekend is the traditional time for Canadians to put in their gardens. This year, the holiday really falls on the early side of the 24th of May, so I’m not panicking to get everything planted this weekend. I haven’t even bought any bedding plants yet, although I did plant some lettuce seeds in pots on the deck about 10 days ago, which are now enthusiastically poking their heads out of the dirt. I’ll plant some more in the next day or so so that I have nicely staggered crops of salad greens throughout the summer, and plan to put in some other cool-weather vegetables like carrots, beets, radishes, and spinach. Tomato seedlings could probably do with another week under their cosy coats, just in case.
One thing that we did start work on today, which I’m very excited about, is removing the grass from our front garden. I have been gradually chipping away at this pathetic area of sod for the past few years, expanding the flower beds and putting in low-maintenance perennials instead. Our house faces north and we also have a very old maple tree in the front yard, which means that it is an awkward area for gardening. Part of it is in total shade, part of it is about half-shade and half-blast furnace, and all of it tends to be very dry because of the tree cover. There really isn’t enough sun there for grass, and because I don’t like wasting water on a lawn, it can look pretty terrible when it’s dry. We do have a small patch of grass in the back garden for the kids to play on, but we never just go and sit on the grass at the front. So, its days are numbered!
We are planning on extending the perennial beds, putting in a path, and also a raised bed in the middle. We are still deciding between putting in a herb spiral (I think that it might be difficult getting the right kinds of stackable rocks for it–my mom and dad’s farm tends towards producing round, not flat rocks!) or something star-shaped like this raised bed kit from Lee Valley. I plan to put in most of our lettuce and greens out here, and will be launching an experiment with herbs and carrots to see how well they do with the somewhat limited sun.
So, we’re getting the ground prepared and then we’ll have a look at our rocks and see how they stack up. I’m also planning on getting some willow branch cuttings from my mom and dad’s farm to make an obelisk for scarlet runner beans…my sister’s branches actually took root and started to leaf out again, forming a beautiful living obelisk. Sweet!
City dwellers are becoming increasingly excited about the possibilities for growing food in the space that is traditionally dominated by a barren patch of grass. I’ll be posting more about the burgeoning Food Not Lawns movement in the coming week!
May 19th, 2008 at 3:49 pm
Well done! It does my heart good to see sod stacked in a pile.
Definitely do the herb spiral with round rocks! We did ours with stackable rocks/concrete because that’s just what we had kicking around (we stacked them/built the spiral first and filled in the dirt afterward, but that’s a bit backwards.) Typically you just create a mound of dirt and put the rocks on afterward, so they don’t have to stack on top of one another necessarily - they just get pressed into the dirt, leaning inward, and bumping up against each other. You could also make one in the tradition of a stone fence, using misshapen and different sized stones. Here is a cool picture of one like that: http://www.gardeningtipsnideas.com/2007/05/how_to_make_a_herb_spiral.html
Good fun! I can’t wait to see what you do…
May 20th, 2008 at 2:26 am
Oh, that’s a good idea. I would have built, then filled, too. That one looks really nice; I’d seen it before. I think that we might make ours a bit bigger but not quite so tall, although I did read that they shouldn’t be more than 1.5m across. Did you put gravel or anything at the bottom for drainage or just start with dirt? I need to phone the Saskatoon Cyclones Road and Track Club; they are fundraising by selling composted manure. I really need something to add to that dreadful soil where the grass was.
I am a little concerned still about the amount of sunlight at the front; it cannot be called full-sun, so I am not sure how some herbs will do there. Sounds like parsley would be ok but I am not entirely sure how everything else will do. Well, we can but try! I guess if it starts looking really pathetic I’ll dig it up and stick it back in a pot at the back.
May 21st, 2008 at 5:38 pm
It looks great! We didn’t put in gravel for drainage–maybe we should have, I don’t know. The one thing we did need to adapt later was add pieces of edging every few feet because it was eroding when we watered. I think this wouldn’t be such a problem with a pre-formed mound? As for sun, if you have 6 hours a day, that should be good. Doesn’t have to be full-blast–most veggies and herbs can grow with that amount each day.
EXCITING!
May 20th, 2009 at 5:58 pm
[...] project #2: building an herb spiral. Check out the inspiring story in “Lawn begone!” (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part [...]