Lawn space is awesome for entertaining and as a place for the kids to play. Think about your own for a moment,,,ahhh, refreshing! Lemonade, the smell of cut grass, children running through sprinklers; no wonder we have such a love affair with our lawns. BUT - do you really need as much as you have? Is one pick up game of football on Thanksgiving honestly worth an entire year of mowing and trimming? Besides a place to lay a beach blanket or set up a croquette wicket, what does your lawn give back to you, your homestead, your community?For ideas on how to start cutting back on your green monster (and for some juicy garden-porn pictures in their slide show) check out the Lawn Reform Coalition site.
Here at the Hippie Homestead, Eddie and I continue our quest to eliminate as much grass as possible each season. Without the aid of chemical herbicides, or any other 'easy' method (even fire isn't potent enough to knock back the scourge of Texas: Bermuda grass), we have discovered that the only effective way to destroy the grass is by smothering it. Thick layers of flattened cardboard boxes are placed right over the grass, and we are plenty careful to be sure they overlap each other or the grass finds a way through. Grass clippings, roadside leaves we gather, manure, wood chips and kitchen wastes are composted on top of the cardboard, leaving a new bed in their wake. This method of sheet composting works quite well, and isn't nearly as messy-looking as it sounds. Just keep anything that looks gross covered in grass clippings or leaves...For more information, check out Pat Lanza's book called Lasagna Gardening. We have reclaimed about an acre of new planting beds from the grass so far, and in the process, saved a whopping 4 tons of biodegradable wastes from the landfill! IMAGINE THE IMPACT if every homeowner created just one teensy plant bed...mmmmm, delicious.
The results of sheet composting right over the grass: awesome, rich, totally dig-able soil in about 18 months. What we have gained: healthier soil of course, but also: more biodiversity, less mowing, a much richer habitat and greatly improved water conservation,,,not a bad tally, huh? Plus, isn't that football game more fun in the road or the park anyway?
Photos yoinked from the Lawn Reform Coalition peeps. I loved the blue chairs in the tall grass and zinnias so much that I vow to recreate this scene at the hippie homestead this year!
