Cover Crops

I’ve been trying my hand at Cover Crops this year, after each summer and winter harvest was over, to keep weeds down and enrich the soil.

Last Year’s Cover Crop
Last Fall (more like November by the time I got around to it) I planted Austrian Peas in the Summer half of the front garden as well as all over the back garden. The back garden Austrian peas came up sparsely and were not very vigorous (no pictures), but I didn’t plant them as thickly as the front garden, and the soil isn’t as good back there.

Austrian Peas
These were recommended to me by Farmer K and Farmer C, especially since they are tasty to eat as plants from late Fall through early Spring. I had never planted seed not in a row, but quickly figured out a reasonable method to uncover a square foot at a time, spread seeds, then cover the square foot back up. This probably made for very thick planting, but the seeds are cheap and it was easy enough to plant.

November 2009, Austrian Peas

Early May 2010, Austrian Peas

By the way, the farmers were right, these were very tasty. Like a grassy pea, but very fresh tasting, getting less tasty after the New Year. Great crop to grow, and fairly easy to remove a few weeks ago (early May). I left them in as long as possible until I was ready to plant, they were waist high by that point! Pulling them up went fairly well, a good grasp go much of the root structure, but I tried to leave the rhizomes in for extra nitrogen. These peas had huge rhizomes and were fun to look at (pictures next year).

Wheat!
I planted some in a smallish strip last fall as a cover crop for an area that had sod clumps in it still... just call me “The Little Red Hen”

November 2009, Wheat

Late May 2009, Wheat
Looks like it’s getting ready to harvest, it has to dry out a little more, then on with the threshing and winnowing! Good thing I already have a grain mill from Eric as a holiday present last year (see So Cheesy and Cracker-y).

This year’s cover crop (Summer 2010)

For a summer cover crop for the half of the front garden that gets more sunlight, I chose a mixture of wheat, rye, and austrian peas. I planted thickly in late April, and didn’t have enough seed for the whole area, so I got some buckwheat seeds for the rest, but they haven’t come up yet (as of May 28th 2010).

I’m planning to pull out this cover crop in August, in time to plant the winter garden, just enough time to have them keep out the weeds and add bulk for composting.

Early May cover crop (Wheat, Rye, Peas)

Late May cover crop (Wheat, Rye, Peas)

Urban Gardening - The Front Garden

The ready-to-plant Front Garden!

Here's a picture series showing the building of the front garden, from burlap-covered-grass to compost dumping to retaining wall.

Urban Gardening, part 2

Delightful picture of the season

The more we sow the less we mow, Urban Gardening in the front yard, part 1

We’re sick of the front lawn! Why mow all the time? It’s a pain, and the grass is all different kinds, it looks like a kid who cut his own hair, and as far as I can tell, we don’t get any real benefit from it. I want more garden space, so we’re going for it, we’re converting our front lawn into a garden.

We have an 800 square foot yard (not including the few plants we want to keep, like a rose bush and a dahlia).

So, how did we do it?

After talking to people in the know (Garden Fever, Farmer K), we settled on the “sheet composing” or “smothering” method, because we wanted less work, we didn’t want to dig up the sod. The process is:

1) Cover the lawn with some sheet thing that is organic and will decompose (newspaper, burlap bags, craft paper). This will smother the grass, because it won’t have any light or much air. We did dig up some of the grass, because it was crab grass that is usually hard to kill with this method.
2) Cover the organic sheet with at least 6” of compost
3) Wait a while for the grass to die, time depends on what type of grass we have, which is a mix, so anywhere from 3 months to 6 months.
4) Till and plant!

We decided to start with converting half the lawn (the north side), then in a few weeks do the other half (south side).

More details:
1) Cover the lawn with organic sheet:
We got burlap bags from Stumptown’s roasting facility’s dumpster, they are supposed to be more durable than newspaper and have less inorganic ink. And they were free! We had to cut the burlap bags open, to make them single layer.

2) Cover burlap bags with 6” of compost:
We got 8 cubic yards of mushroom compost from Mt. Scott Fuel Co., which is close to our house, and when we did a quality check it smelled great, and was nice and steamy.

Don’t dive in!

Queen o’ the pile

And...we’re done for now...

But what will the neighbors say? We’ve already seen our neighbors seem less than excited about our new plot. But it doesn’t seem like there are any strong objections, but I’ll happy to talk to any of them if they want to. Our neighborhood doesn’t really feel like the kind of area where our neighbors would be really excited about “strange hippy stuff”, but they probably won’t object too much either.

I think I need to put a sign in the front yard, so when people slow down the stare (already happened when we were working in the yard), they have something to read.

Farmer K has started saying “the more we sow the less you mow”, which is pretty catchy. I also like “America: feeding itself one yard at a time” from Eric. Here are a few more ideas:

It's not a grassroots movement, it's a sunroots movement
Our front yard, seeds of change
Bringing back victory gardens
Mowing is for wussies, real men garden
Friends of sunroot gardens CSA
Plotting (a garden) for change and hope
Garden of eatin'
We're pro bush...bush beans!
Ohh that smell, can't you smell that smell? . . . It's hope
Me and my ho(e) love gardening
This garden'll pop you collar(ed greens)
Food, not lawns

We may also be working on a “Bringing Garden Back” version of “Bringing Sexy Back”

To be continued...