Concerning lawns, gardens, etc.

[Backroads]

Just kind of wanted to talk lawns and gardens. We've a smallish house with a decent-sized lawn, which we are trying desperately to get healthy without actually using a bunch of water. We kind of want to start going the less-lawn approach anyway. Yay. We're also going to build raised garden beds. I ripped up a landscaping patch the previous owners had installed, mostly because the landscaping fabric had been breached and at the point I figure it's best to just rip it up. About half of this was overrun with clover, which we have no problem with (though my parents, big lawn fanatics, are driven nuts by this and are threatening to come rip up my pretty clover patch.).

Anything y'all doing?

 

[Budget]

Also doing above ground gardens and planter gardens on the deck while we live in this particular house.

We don't have even a 3 foot square plot anywhere that isn't on a steep incline and only 1/2 inch soil covering hard rock and boulders.  BUT sadly, last year (for the first year ever)  I saw my garden dying off and didn't understand why... watched huge, gorgeous potato and zucchini and tomato plants die to nothing, etc. 

THIS year I figured it out - after watching it do it again - but this year I studied and paid close attention.  Black spot disease - spreading from the 5 acres of woods surrounding the property.  Watched it from the bushes/trees, drifted to the roses then the peas, beans, zucchini, potatoes and over to each of the tomato plants... like a slow wave.  I replanted and treated (again; more of a science research project in finding which product actually worked).  Lost all the potatoes but the replanted peas, beans, zucchini are doing well and the tomato plants and pepper plants seem to have been caught and trimmed and treated in time to get us somewhat of a harvest.

[mordorbund]

Did somebody here say they had a 3-bucket system for compost? what is that?

[NeedleinA]

On 6/4/2016 at 2:04 PM, Backroads said:

We kind of want to start going the less-lawn approach anyway.

We do the half lawn AND half everything and anything we can cram into the space approach. This is our yard... just part of my "front" yard! This has been a family project. Everything you see has been planted/placed by 4 little boys and their parents. When we bought the house it was only grass and one dying shrub. Many family nights in the "garden"

EDIT: we live in a Zone 4-5, so we have to baby our plants each year!

 

Edited July 9, 2016 by NeedleinA

[Backroads]

Needle, I love that!

[pam]

Beautiful yard Needle....want to have some garden nights at my house?

[mirkwood]

Your grass is in excellent shape!

 

I like grassy yards.  We have three backyard trees, a vegetable garden, roses, roses, some more roses and a "flower garden" in front.

[Guest]

Very beautiful yard. My parents' has always been really nice, but I don't  have that gift. I've been trying harder this year. 

[Backroads]

We have this hideous old dresser we sort of attempted to fix up last year... to be replaced by a dresser we bought. My MiL was going to take it despite the fact we made it useless. But it's been sitting on the back patio all year and I'm sure the cute little Mexican couple with the impeccable yard bordering ours thinks we're losers and who knows what our other neighbors who have been saying to their mom/landlady who happens to work with me. 

So we're turning the drawers into planters and my husband even wants to turn the dresser into some sort of terraced planter. Take that, Pinterest.

[Just_A_Guy]

Our lawn has consistently been the *last* one in the neighborhood to green up in the springtime, and even in the summer it never looks great even though we consistently water, aerate and weed & feed.  This year I'm trying IFA'IFA's four-step program and applied step 2 this week.  Lawn is greener than usual for this kind of year but still awfully thin.

Otherwise - we transplanted a wisteria bush late last summer.  It seemed to take the transplant well and gave us a little new growth in the fall, but no new growth or buds this year--I don't think it made it through the winter.  

[NeedleinA]

11 hours ago, pam said:

Beautiful yard Needle....want to have some garden nights at my house?

"In 1972 a crack commando unit was sent to prison by a military court for a crime they didn't commit. These men promptly escaped from a maximum security stockade to the Los Angeles underground. Today, still wanted by the government, they survive as soldiers of fortune. If you have a problem (LAWN), if no one else can help, and if you can find them, maybe you can hire the A-Team." cue music!

If you can find us () our boys, as soldiers of fortune work for pudding cups, Italian icy pops, or Orange Leaf! 

[Budget]

 

 

NeedleinA - Love the photo of the lawn.  I'm always in awe of people that can put something like that together.  The vision and imagination to get just the right flowers and bushes that will go well together, be the right heights, color combination as well as how to perfectly place the rock! 

[NeedleinA]

Three things that have helped us grow our garden:

1. When we take family trips in the car to neighboring areas we usually pick up a new plant each time. Then when it grows in the yard, we can be reminded of our trip!
2. When non-members take walks and say something about our yard in passing, I say something like "How would like it if a couple of us came by your house and brought a couple of these plants to put in your own yard?" If they say yes, our family PLUS the Missionaries come by to do service and give the Missionaries an in with the non-members. Each time we lose plants this way, we are encouraged to plant even more than before.
3. Cut and swap plants with others, exchange plants. It grows the variety and spreads the love around.

It would be neat to see other's pictures too!

Edited June 5, 2016 by NeedleinA

[anatess2]

Gah.  I love gardening.  Gardening doesn't love me.  I had an aquaponic system... couldn't keep up with it.  I spent lots of time with the front yard.  The only thing left is the mini-rose bushes, the zoysia grass, a tree I don't know the name of, and the palm tree.  Everything else is dead dead dead dead dead.

[Backroads]

I'll post a picture as soon as I get my veggie garden up and going. Husband wanted to build some raised beds along the yard sides away from the garden patch, but he's in Idaho for two weeks and I'm not carpentry-crafty, so I'll just return to the garden patch.

[bytebear]

I replaced my front lawn with native plants using a city rebate program.  I thought it would look all desert like being Southern California, but they are thriving.  When I planted, it was literally all dirt with tiny green plants scattered about.  The pic is from several months ago, and they have filled in even more, and most have purple flowers now.  Looks amazing but now that I know what the plants look like beyond their tiny buds, I might transplant and buy some filler plants.  

Edited June 13, 2016 by bytebear

[Traveler]

My definition of a gardener – Someone that despises and hates anything that want to grow on its own anywhere it intends to grow and forces everything in their power to grow where they otherwise wouldn’t.   I do not try to grow things in my yard – the only place I can get things to grow is in the refrigerator.   For upkeep in my yard I heir a gardener.

The other reason I dislike gardening is because by time I finish – it seems that there is now more to do than when I started.  I also love nature and enjoy the beauty of the earth as G-d tends it without people trying to make it better – I do, however, love the temple grounds.  There is something about the sacred beauty of the temples.

 

The Traveler

[Sunday21]

What is a flower? something that, after you have watered it, talked to it, fertilized it, pruned it, and loved it, dies. What is a weed? Something that after you have dug it up, sworn at it, stomped on it, poisoned it, lives and thrives.

[Guest]

On 6/4/2016 at 2:04 PM, Backroads said:

a decent-sized lawn, which we are trying desperately to get healthy without actually using a bunch of water.

We kind of want to start going the less-lawn approach anyway. Yay. We're also going to build raised garden beds.

I ripped up a landscaping patch the previous owners had installed, mostly because the landscaping fabric had been breached and at the point I figure it's best to just rip it up. About half of this was overrun with clover, which we have no problem with (though my parents, big lawn fanatics, are driven nuts by this and are threatening to come rip up my pretty clover patch.).

I personally love clover.  And it takes less mowing than grasses.  Clover also requires LESS water.

If you're raising the garden beds above grade, then that will be a way to keep the clover out of them.  But another approach is to dig out a foot to 18" deep and lay down a drainage cloth (higher quality than weed cloth, and often less expensive) in the area.  You can even double up if you wish extra reinforcement.  It will help define it if you can place a border of brick or landscape edging.  This latter constituent will not stop the clover from infesting the area, but the drainage cloth should.  I like using a two layer system with an under-over arrangement.

Depending on what you're putting in the garden beds, you may need to adjust the depth and the soil amendments.

LOAM: This is a term used to describe the ideal mix of sand-silt-clay in the soil.  The variation is mainly in the percentage of clay.  Sand/Silt should be about equal.  The remaining percentage reserved for the clay can vary between 20% to 35% depending on your needs.  If your in situ soil is largely clay, you're not going to do well with an in-ground system unless you're really good at controlling the water.  Raised beds are really the best option for serious gardening when you have a highly clay soil.

FLOWERS & HERBS: These will grow in almost any inorganic soil composition.  But you need organics with a lot of water.  I'd lessen the depth of the bed possibly to 8" deep.  This is obviously for the short kind.  If you want a rose bush, it will require a greater depth.

VEGETABLES: You'll probably want a greater depth on the bed for this one.  Root vegetables benefit from a greater percentage of clay in the soil.  But don't get it higher than the 35% or else it will be difficult to work or water.  Root vegetables require the lower layer of soil to have a greater level of water than the surface.  So placing peat moss at the bottom with a more sandy layer at the top will produce better root vegetables.

PEAT MOSS: This is a wonderful way of reducing water.  Most come with some acid neutralizer and fertilizer in the mix (no it doesn't say on the labelling -- so it's a shot in the dark).  But after several cycles of watering and drainage, it tends to become a bit on the acidic side.  This is fine for me because almost all the plants I like to have like acidic soil.  Do not use this as a soil replacement.  It works best if it is no more than 30%  of the overall soil mixture.

SAWDUST: I actually bought some wood pellets (for the pellet stove) and placed them in the soil.  Once wet, they just break up into sawdust.  It not only acted like peat moss for a while, but it also increased the micorrhizaal fungi and earthworm activity in the soil.  If you can get the pine pellets, they tend to be more acidic for more acid loving plants.  If not, mix some shredded newsprint (B&W only, no color) in the top 6" of the soil.

 

[Backroads]

7 hours ago, Sunday21 said:

What is a flower? something that, after you have watered it, talked to it, fertilized it, pruned it, and loved it, dies. What is a weed? Something that after you have dug it up, sworn at it, stomped on it, poisoned it, lives and thrives.

So, I'm cleaning out, very late, last year's garden plot. I'm finding some lovely plants I don't want in the garden. I want to transplant them, and did so as carefully as I could. I'm sure they'll die.

Here's the garden plot now. We sort of ignored it all spring.

I have plans for it, I swear.

My tomatoes that attacked everything last year are planning a resurgence, as you can see. I think the Black Russians are leading it.

[anatess2]

We're suppose to fill this area up with some nice butterfly attractions but got lazy.  So, it's gonna stay like this until we decide what to do next year.

[Backroads]

So this might turn into the year to completely replace our lawn! I turned on the sprinklers and... well... forgot about them and they were spraying past 10. No more secondary for the rest of the year. I'm too interested with maintaining the grass with culinary water (I'll save that for the beds), so maybe we'll let it die and then rip it up and do another option next year. Hopefully the city won't get upset. I DO have a few friends in power in city government if someone tries to ticket us for an ugly lawn.

[classylady]

Backroads, is your city already on water restrictions? Is your secondary water monitored?  Our secondary water isn't monitored, so the city has no idea how much we use. We do have watering restrictions in place where we should water only every other day with no one watering on Sunday. If we accidentally kept our water on past a certain time, besides us and perhaps some neighbors, I don't think anyone would even notice. We don't have a sprinkler system, so we have to water by hauling a hose and sprinkler around. There are times when we have accidentally left our water on too long. No big deal out here in Northern Utah County. I do try to be careful about our water usage, and we probably under water rather than over water. My lawn isn't doing so well this year.

Edited June 22, 2016 by classylady

[Backroads]

It's not monitored per say, but there are watchers. 

[Guest LiterateParakeet]

Backroads, I don't garden - at all, but my husband is a Master Gardner, and he is on the Grounds Maintenance crew at our local temple.  One thing I was fascinated to learn from him is how they sometimes use vegetables to decorate the temple.  Ornamental onions are really cool looking.  I can't remember the others off the top of my head (remember I don't garden) but if you want I can ask him.