Before
Gardening in December – sort of.
We’re converting a strip of lawn into edible garden – and sheet mulching is one way of getting the lawn out and the veggies in.
I’d always intended to do this in November, but we had so much rain, I just couldn’t get to it.
With +10 degree C temperatures in the forecast and the promise of a rare clear sky, I finally got the sheet mulching going last Saturday, December 19th.
There are plenty of ways to convert lawn to garden.
In the past, I’ve deep tilled lawn when converting to grow space. By deep tilling, you can compost the lawn by laying it green side down into a trench, then you just keep working your way ‘back’, dropping the sod into the trench you’ve just dug.
It’s hard work.
To be honest, I was originally a skeptical of sheet mulching.
The idea is to use a barrier – like cardboard or newspaper OVER the lawn, then cover that with manure or straw or other organic matter.
The barrier cuts daylight to the sod, essentially killing the lawn and more importantly, the weeds (and we had plenty).
Everything, dead lawn, weeds, and barrier coat will decompose. So, over a few months time, the earth worms do their stuff and the entire area composts out to a nice, planting ready garden plot.
My friend Spring Gillard, queen of compost, suggested it the first time she saw my lawn. She didn’t really assuage my skepticism mind you. I was listening attentively (as always) until she went on a tangent about using a futon for a barrier, since, after all “you can compost a futon.” Always with the compost this one.
In any event, I parked the idea, until I saw the results at Cam McDonald’s urban garden in Mount Pleasant. Cam sold me on the idea, and I decided to give it a try.
The internet provided lots of different approaches to sheet mulching, further convincing me that it’s way better to let the earth worms do the work.
In my usual fashion, I’ve decided to keep in simple. For one thing. No futons.
GoodBye Lawn
Laying Down the Daily News as Barrier
We’re not taking up all the front lawn, at least not this year.
The area I’ve picked is roughly 8 feet by 50 feet, so it’s a good size.
Our front yard is extremely sunny, and by taking out this strip along the front, we’re more than doubling our veg growing space.
What we don’t eat or give way to neighbours, goes to the Edible Garden Project here on the North Shore.
The prep work is minimal – the grass is already cut short, so me and my helpers set about laying down the barrier coat. We used newspapers, dutifully collected for us by one of our neighbours our luscious, sexy neighbour (amended at her request).
It should be reassuring to all those struggling media magnates to know that The Globe and Mail is now hard at work on my front yard.
Next, I covered the area with about six inches or more of manure. I say “I” because oddly enough, once the newspaper had been spread out on the lawn and it was time to haul manure, my two teenage helpers disappeared.
I had 5 yards of manure dropped the day before we started. Every time Roberge Trucking comes by with a load, I think of my uncles and cousins on the farm.
They spent every day shoveling manure out of the barn and generally trying to get rid of the stuff. They’d be laughing their heads off to see me paying some guy to dump a load in the front yard.
Manure A Go Go
Aside from costing $190.00 delivered, 5 yards is a good healthy pile of manure. It’s in the background of the 2nd photo, under a blue tarp.
Even though it’s a short wheel-barrow trip to the new garden, I was pretty bagged by the end of the afternoon (there’s another yard or so still left under the tarp, waiting for me when the rain stops).
One of the most rewarding parts of the work was talking to neighbours and passers-by who stopped to see what we were doing. Spreading newspapers out on the lawn in December has a way of attracting attention.
The rain held off until the end of the day, just as forecast. I’ve got a bit of clean-up work to do, but most of the work is done. I celebrated by ordering some seeds !
Now we just let it all sit through the winter, and if everything goes right, we’ll be planting right in to our newly ’sheet mulched’ garden in the spring.
I’ll keep you posted on how this all works out – and whether I get to that last bit of manure before spring !
Done Just as Dusk and the Rain Come
[...] Details on my garden’s website – SunsetGardens.ca [...]
Hello! I was looking up your phone number (to sort out my list of babysitters) and found this! We also have plans to create an edible garden…. across the street. It will be nice to have a fellow urban farmer nearby. Megan
ps. loved your peaches, have yet to taste the pickles. We canned quite a bit this year as well. The tomato sauce and salsa have been the biggest winners – lovely to open in December.
One more thing… have you ever considered getting a chicken? Is it legal in our hood?
Looks fabulous already. I find a pile of rich manure more visually interesting than sod. And in a few months you get plenty of food! Why aren’t we all doing this?
So… how are you going to keep the deer out?
Well old musty futons are free and don’t have to be delivered. I worry about using manure on gardens these days because of what goes in to the animals – especially steer, chicken and pig manure. As with food, best to know where the crap comes from too. Looks like you’re well on your way. But just in case, North Shore Recycling has an excellent booklet on Sheet Mulching. Couldn’t find it on line. But you can probably pick one up at their office. Oh and I prefer to use the Province “news” paper for composting or mulching, so satisfying to compost garbage.