Food not Lawns ~ A “How-To” in a few easy steps!
front lawn into a garden and would love any tips and or recycled
products to use. I need mulch, anything creative to build raised beds,
manure, old bathtub or barrel, etc. i am also open to trade/exchange.
look forward to connecting with you! peace.
The HOW-TO offered by Linda Buzzell-Saltzman, member of The Santa Barbara Permaculture Network,
author, Eco-Psychotherapist, and co-founder of The Santa Barbara Organic Gardening Club:
Good for you! Here are a few things I’ve learned the hard way.
Don’t eliminate the lawn all at once unless it’s very small.
With a hose, lay out a shape (something nice and flowing looks good) that leaves some lawn in the middle.
Then cut out the sod between that hose and the driveway/sidewalks. Usually it will roll up like carpet if you have a good shovel. Then next year you can take out the remaining lawn in you like.
In the meantime, stick a bird bath or bird feeder in the middle of the lawn and you’ll look “designed,” which is important for a front yard if you don’t want the neighbors to complain.
Now that we’re getting the rains, it’s a good time to go scouting for stones, which tend to wash down into roads,
where the city or roads people will at length be required to haul them away, so you’re actually helping by removing them.
This gives you good raw material to build up the sides of raised beds if you like, to create terraces, or just to mark paths or the border between the lawn and your veggie/flower garden.
Another items that washes up this time of year (literally) is driftwood, which you can also use for raised beds if you like, but of course it deteriorates with time and may contain some salt.
Manure is available from many local horse farms.
Mulch is available from tree trimming companies (saves them from hauling it to the dump).
Barrels are actually pretty cheap - under 15 for a pretty big one.
But maybe some folks on this list will have stuff to give you.
(You can always put an ad on The MPN when requesting what you need or have to share. mpn@klarity.org)
Happy Gardening!
Fantastic, Great Improvement, Keeping Working Hard, Wow.
Your articles are so impressive that I can not forget it.