From Lawn to Garden: Getting Rid of the Last bit of Lawn for the Spring

It's hard to believe our growing season has for the most part come to an end. We still have some potatoes that I'm experimenting with growing in a container and I'm curious to see if we will get any since it's colder now.

Just because our harvest has almost ceased doesn't mean our work has. If you would like to begin a garden next year, START NOW! That was one of our biggest regrets this year- that we hadn't had this idea to transform our yard into a vegetable garden. If we had, I believe more of our yard would have been able to be converted and more nutrients put into the soil well ahead of time. So, we are trying Back to Edens methods as much as we can. We have a large area to cover and were very grateful to our dairy farming friends for letting us come and get some au natural fertilizer-- what a huge blessing to add this into our soil! Alas, it would take me several trips to cover our entire garden, but some is much better than none. We laid down newspapers, the manure, and then a mulch. We were hoping for wood chips and despite calling tree companies and going to home improvement stores, couldn't get our hands on any. But again, we are doing more than we did last fall and hopefully we will see healthier soil next year.

Here are some pots that produced poorly so we are even strengthening the soil in them as well. I wanted to show this because even if you have a patio garden or do strictly boxed gardens, you still need to put some nourishment back into your soil. You can use rabbit, chicken, cow, or any farm animal's manure really as they are all good sources of nitrogen.

As I mentioned in the title, we are converting more of our tiny yard into growing spaces. We removed our pond and will have a nice fertile area for next spring. Very excited as once the pond was out, we saw how much more land was there than it looked like. We also brought forth a smaller box frame and some pots in the hopes that they will kill the grass under them this winter and we can grow and expand more. Moving grass is a LOT of work, but this should help us out. You could also begin to cover your lawn with cardboard and leaves NOW and that will help you convert your yard (or some of it) into growing space next year without so much back labor.

In the rear of our shed we had these boxes last summer.

They have been moved to the front of the shed to a patch of grass we never got to this summer. Our hopes are that they will once again kill off some of the grass and make it easier to clear the area this spring. If they do, they will move up to the old pond area and grow lettuces there and once again, kill off the last few areas of grass.

Now, the area that used to hold the boxes (in the rear of the shed) has been cleared with minimal work from us this week. We covered the ground with cardboard, manure, and mulch to prepare the area even more since it used to be a stone driveway! We moved the cucumber trellis over and will have our cucumbers growing in the rear of the bed and then another smaller fruit in the front-- although I think swiss chard would do awesome here! We will see.

In the old cucumber bed which was actually very small bed wise last year-- we dumped dead plants all summer under the trellis to prepare that soil (which was also a part of the former stone driveway). We just cleared out the weeds this week, turned the soil, and will be adding cardboard and some leaves soon to help prepare this large area for growing next summer. Perhaps our beans will go in this year although I need to check our crop rotation guide and see what will do best in this corner.

The blueberries are blessing us with some lovely fall foliage and the strawberry plants have grown to a nice healthy size. Hopefully next summer we will enjoy the fruits of our patience and tending. We have plans to add cantaloupe or honeydew next year and are looking forward to supplying a lot of our fruit as well as vegetables.

Now, you may be wondering if all the hard work is worth it. Yes-- so very much!! We are still pulling onions and pretty much at least two meals a day we are still enjoying at least one thing from the garden in our meals. Whether it be salsa, tomato sauce, frozen peas, vegetable broth, veggie soup-- the list really does go on, but YES it has been so worth it! It cut back on our grocery bill tremendously last year and to be honest, it was a harder year as we had to put more time in to preparing the ground and deal with lots of rain and cooler temps than what is normal. We are already looking at our seeds for next year-- and we saved lots of our own which will be exciting to see them grow and produce next summer. We are going to be using lots of Baker Creek seeds this year as man of theirs preformed super well.

So, can I encourage you to try and grow more? Expand and produce more of your own food? It is such a rewarding experience! Do you have questions? We'd love to help-- or do you want to share what you do in the fall to prepare for the next spring?

What Type of Seed--- What Type of Plant-- What Type of Produce to Buy for Clean Eating

I always hear people say, "But why buy organic? Its so much more money and they use some sprays and pesticides too!" This is all true. Organic produce is more money and they do sometimes use sprays. So, what should you buy?

First, Let's start with your seed. Ideally, this is the best way to go. Order your own heirloom organic seeds and grow them yourself with no pesticides or chemicals. To be truly at its best, you need to bring the plant up right and that begins with it's seed. A GMO seed has it's DNA interlaced with pesticides. That means even if you buy seeds from the store and grow them organically, the GMO seed will still most likely contain pesticides and genetic modifications already. So your best bet is heirloom seeds which have been passed down for at least 50 years (or before GMOs became so widespread and abundant), your second option is to buy organic seeds and raise them organically, and your third best option is to buy any old seed and raise the plant organic (although this should be a last resort-- but it's still a step in the right direction). We have ordered seeds from Incredible Seeds and Baker Creek seeds and been very happy with everything we've grown from them. It does take more preparation and planning, but if you're not quite that committed or perhaps some of your seeds didn't do so well then we can now look at what type of plants to buy...

So buying a plant you want to ask the grower about its seed and growing conditions. What type of seed-- heirloom? Organic? was it GMO? If you are buying your plants from any big box stores then we can just assume it was a gmo seed. These plants will grow bigger and faster but that's not always a good thing. Sometimes though, this is your only option so now that you have your plant, raise it organically. Try not to treat the plants and use organic compost and manure to help it grow rather then something like miracle grow. Better yet, look around on craigslist or ask some gardening friends if they have any extra you can purchase for them. Another option is to look for an organic nursery.

Now, let's say you didn't plant seeds or grow plants and let's be honest, even if you did those two things, you may still need to purchase some produce whether in the summer or throughout the year. So what do you look for and where do you go? You might think I'd say the farmer's market but I know many farmers who sell there and have no issue with Monsanto. So even though your food is growing closer to home, if it's being grown under the same conditions they are using hundreds of miles away it doesn't matter. So, no matter where you buy you are looking for non GMO organic produce. This means their seeds were not genetically modified and their plants have been raised as organically as possible and your produce is now the best it can be and as close to what God had in mind.

Okay, so you just took all that in and you might still be thinking-- but why GMO free and why heirloom anyway? Why shouldn't farmers use these methods in order to produce more food to meet the needs of our society? And I'm here to say if more people grew even some of their own food then these farmers would perhaps not need to mass produce and modify plants to produce these outrageously large plants and produce. Also, and this is kind of blunt, America has an obesity issue-- bigger plants that are modified contributes to people having more and eating more and it's not better for you. Corn is one of the most GM crops and is used for corn flakes, corn chips, cereals, etc. and do people really need to eat that many corn products in such crazy abundance? Probably not.

Now, lets talk price tags again. Organic is the most expensive but in order to save: grow your own, eat seasonally, and preserve it while it's at it's peak. And in the end, any fruit or vegetable is still better than a bag of candy so at least start there and then continue to educate yourself and make decisions that help bring growing conditions and seed quality back to what it was once designed to be.