DIY removing grass to make a garden bed

Over the last 6 years I have removed a lot of grass to make new garden beds throughout my yard.  Once a bed is in place, by the next year I've decided it needs to be expanded.  Making more garden bed space is not just an obsession it makes for a more appealing bed that has enough space for tall, medium and low  height plants.  The first 4 years of garden making, me and my trusty spade became an efficient grass removal machine.  If you gave me 30 minutes and a napping child,  I could cut out a 10 ft sq swath of land.  If you've never removed sod,  the process involves jumping down with one leg onto your spade to cut down as deep down into the earth  under the roots of the grass and then pushing the shovel and sod up.  This jumping down action in addition to childbirth has done a number on my pelvis, I won't get into pelvic anatomy but let's just say I end up in quite a bit of pain when I forget I am not a machine.  So last summer when I realised my back yard bed needed to be expanded I decided to try out the "lasagne method" a gentler form of turning grass into a bed.

Below is a picture of the first step.  Just the perimeter grass of the bed needs to be pulled up. My trusty spade can be seen in the foreground.

Step 2:  Cardboard is laid over top of the grass.  A layer of organic matter is put overtop of the cardboard, in this case lawn clippings and fresh compost.  Another layer of soil is placed over top.  The idea is that the cardboard will work to smother the grass and then eventually decompose.

 

 

Step 3: Patience.  Once your layers are in place you can really only plant shallow rooted plants until the grass is smothered and the cardboard layer has decomposed which will take at least several months.  I cheated a bit to plant a lemon cypress, cutting through the cardboard.  Below 2 pics of the bed one year later.

 

 

You can see from the first "before" picture that some plants have been shuffled around.  Shannon gave me some rudbeckia  and I added the lemon cypress which really glows in the winter time.  I've grown some carrots at the apex of the bed for easy access for kids needing a snack .  I'm quite pleased with the result of the new bed and found the "lasagne method" to be kinder to my body. I would recommend this method to others looking to eradicate grass in order to establish more garden space.

 

Stone versus Steel

Lauren started landscaping her front boulevard slope recently and she decided she needed some boulders as part of her design. So we loaded up all the kids in the back seat of my truck and headed to the quarry in Pitt Meadows.  The entrance into the quarry was sketchy and we had to pull over to let tandem dump trucks pass but this did not stop us.  Lauren convinced somebody in the office to sell her a boulder even though they don't normally.  They drove her up to the rock pile so she could pick out the perfect boulder. 
 

It turned out the perfect boulder weighed in at a hefty 600 kg (1300 lbs).  It was loaded in the back of the truck with a giant machine and we were off.

Back at Lauren's we unloaded the kids and set them up in front of the TV, we figured boulder moving isn't the safest thing for children.  I suggested we take off the tailgate but Lauren confidently said that I wouldn't want my truck bumper to be damaged by the falling boulder so we left it on.....  Our first attempt to move it resulted in panic, after both of us pushing on it with all our force we were not able to budge it, and the possibility of us not getting the boulder off before our husbands got home began to loom.  Lauren asked an inquiring neighbour if we could borrow a large metal pry bar and she kindly obliged.  We grabbed some scrap plywood and were able to pry up the boulder high enough to slide the plywood under.  Then with a combination of prying and pushing with all our might we were able to slowly move the boulder out of the bed of my truck and onto the tailgate. Then forward movement halted and that is when I saw the tailgate start to slowly bend in the middle.  We pushed and pried some more but the tailgate continued to bend essentially making a nest for the boulder to sit in.  Somehow we gathered all our strength and had to pry and block the bolder to inch it off of the tailgate.  After letting out a few hollers of success a couple neighbours came over to congratulate us and asked us how the tailgate faired.  I was able to close it but there was a gaping 3 inch space between the truck bed and the bottom edge of the tailgate.  The next day we were at my brother's house and he was able to bend the tailgate back to a much smaller gap of only an inch and a half. 

Luckily the truck has a few injuries besides this one and a 2x4 fills the gap very effectively. 

So at the end of the day Lauren got a boulder and I got a bent tailgate.....I think I came out the loser. I understand Lauren wants a couple more boulders, anyone game to help her out?


 

Strawberry Jamming

This is the DDS' second annual strawberry jam making cooperative.  Last year we messed up Shannon's kitchen so this year it was my turn.  In one afternoon we processed about 20 pounds of strawberries into jam.  We chose to make batches of strawberry rhubarb, a lavender infused strawberry and a freezer strawberry jam.  Working together definitely makes the task less daunting.  This time around I washed and hulled the strawberries, while Shannon cut up rhubarb, prepared the jars (water bath to sanitize) and measured all the ingredients.  We follow the recipes that came with the pectin.

Below: Chopping rhubarb picked from Shannon's abundant patch

 

Below: Berries being washed in my sink in prep. for hulling (removing the stem).  My mom has a very old tool made especially for hulling strawberries.  I just push a small teaspoon into the top of the berry and twist out the hull.

 

Our folks picked up the two flats of berries from a local farm in Langley.  There is nothing like the flavour and colour of fresh local strawberries.  You can tell they are not GMO as they definitely don't keep for long and need to be eaten, frozen or jammed very quickly.

Below: Some of our lovely jars of jam.  The darker colour jars are the lavender infused and the lighter is the strawberry rhubarb.
 

 

 

For the Strawberry rhubarb we followed the recipe provided with the pectin.

To make the lavender infused jam, I packed two tea bags (designed for loose leaf tea) with fresh picked lavender, added to the strawberry mixture and let it infuse during the cooking and stirring portion of the process.  I removed the lavender bags before putting the jam into jars.  The flavour added is quite subtle.

 

If you have room in your freezer for freezer strawberry jam I highly recommend it.  For freezer jam you don't need to sterilize or seal your jars or containers and it tastes more like fresh picked strawberries than the cooked jam.  Often it is a little runnier than cooked jam and thus makes an amazing syrup for waffles or ice-cream.
 

Though I don't think we save money by making are own jam, it is satisfying to see the jars lined up on my shelf and know exactly all the ingredients that went into them.  It doesn't hurt to support local farmers too. 

 

 

 

potato tower

I got sucked in by a pin on pinterest. I was innocently scrolling through pins when I came upon a picture of a potato tower. I visited the website and the project seemed easy enough and I happened to have extra galvanized wire fencing on hand so I figured this was a sign that I should make my very own potato tower. I also thought that the tower would save me space in my garden and prevent rogue potatoes from popping up in unwanted places the following growing season. This pin should have come with a warning: do not attempt on a windy day, it didn't. You are supposed to place straw around the inside perimeter of the wire fencing to keep the dirt from falling out.  When I attempted to place the straw it was flying everywhere, it didn't help that I had positioned the planters next to my chain link fence and had neighbours not only watching me fight with the flying straw but also giving me weird looks like what is the crazy gardening neighbour doing now.... It was about this time that I realized that digging a trench and throwing some potatoes in the ground is much easier than trying to make a potato highrise. Eventually I got my two towers built and planted. The potatoes are growing like wildfire and I'm looking forward to the first fresh creamy nugget potato. The verdict is still out as to whether I will plant potato towers next year.

Yellow spreads in my garden at an alarming rate

It seems yellow is a theme that can't be stopped in my out door space right now.  The yellow poppies have arrived in my east border.  I also received an outdoor toss cushion for my birthday with a mod yellow pattern.  Then I scored another free outdoor chair left at the end of a neighbours driveway.  It was a rattan style chair that I washed and sprayed a bright yellow which perked it up considerably.

Now if anyone has an organic solution to rid my grass of buttercups please let me know!  For now I'll try and appreciate them as another yellow addition to my yard.

diy corten steel planter/bench

Back when we tore down our old shed, we found a large 3"X11" timber shoved in the back corner. I immediately started imagining what I could do with the  big chunk of wood.  Around the same time I had been dreaming up what I could make with Corten steel for the garden. I decided I could combine these two components into a single project: a bench with an attached planter.  First off I had to find somewhere to supply the Corten steel.  This proved more difficult than I had thought but eventually I found a localish supplier that would take a small order.  I combined my order with Lauren's under her deck stair riser project.  I found out later that Corten steel is also called weathering steel by engineers and if you refer to it as that to the supplier you get a cheaper price.  In case you're not familiar with Corten steel, it is steel that's composition allows it to form a protective rust layer that doesn't continue to rust.  It is often used landscape projects and sometimes as cladding for buildings.  My dad still doesn't understand why anyone would pay extra for rusty steel! The planter consist or four pieces of the steel welded together to make the planter box (it is open at the bottom end). HH and me both had a welding lesson from my dad and took turns welding the tube together as our first ever welding attempt.  The welds may not have been the prettiest but it is holding together and the welds are covered by dirt!

HH joined the wood corner of the bench together with biscuit joints.

We connected the bench to the planter with flat bar that we had welded on and with lag screws from the inside of the planter into the end of the wood.  We also sealed the wood to slow decay. I bought a dwarf fountain grass (Pennisetum alopecuroides "Little Bunny") and grabbed a few plants I had on hand for the planter, the plants will likely change at a later date. I'm now waiting for the rusty patina to happen.  Below you can see the completed project with my mini-assistant as the model.

Now when I find the time to take a break from gardening, I have the perfect place to sit....so far I haven't found the time!

  It can also be used to jump off of in case that's what you feel like doing instead of sitting!

Birthday Blooms

Every year I watch my peonies and wonder if the day they decide to burst open will be on my birthday.  They were a few days off this year but it is their best year yet with more then a dozen blossoms on one bush. 

Some years being confronted with a plus one addition to my chronological age can be daunting.  Being in my garden, now coming alive with spring growth and colour, makes me glad to be around to experience all that is yet come, this garden season and beyond.

Pictured above: lilacs in the foreground and white wisteria in the background.

Pictured above: alliums in the foreground in my west facing front garden.

Wishing everyone some time outside to enjoy spring!