A question came up in the comments about why I planted in the front. For those of you who've read along for years, skip ahead. But with a number of more recent friends, lemme 'splain.
The back garden was dirt with a paved walkway around the central bed. Evidently used at some points as a vegetable garden. Maybe off and on for the last century.
Surrounded by garages, since there is a half street at 90˚ from ours. We abut five other properties. Trees, particularly stink trees, had taken over the edges. The last owners seemed to only use the back for their dogs, as that door was borked, but with a small doggie door, and solid fences. Found a lot of trash out back, and dog toys. Not to mention a quantity of fireplace ash and turds.
After clearing away a lot of the trees, digging the soil and amending, mulching and watering, the garden grew pretty well considering. A lot to do over years, to get it all well and green, but not thirsty plain lawn. The front yard gets a lot more light, but is harder to water. There is a broken sprinkler system that I will ignore. Living in a desert, I consider it only right to grow low water tolerant plants out there anyway. A green lawn is of no interest to us.
Figuring out what will grow, and what we like, guides our choices. The soil in front is hard clay, but loosened up, that means nutrients. A good place to grow some of our own food, and provide a haven for biodiversity in the city. The sunflowers were intended as a bio-fence, and have worked perfectly, keeping us cooler from the late afternoon glare as well.
There is also a verge, where we spread the wood chips from the extracted trees. But the weeds didn't seem to mind at all. Within the next few years, I hope to put in raised beds and decent soil, to grow something other than weeds out there.
The bok choy is sprouting nicely out front.
2 comments:
Thank you for the explanation. I guess I'm just so used to the typical plain front yard of grass that a different approach throws me for a loop.
You're doing what we should all be doing, making the best use of the space and taking into account the waste of water and space that lawn-growing actually is.
Class,
Oh, in some parts of the world, grass grows well enough with available rain, and the odd supplement - so that makes sense. Especially if you have kids playing on the lawn. Nothing wrong with it, in the right place. We live in an odd area, in a high desert, so we make different choices.
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