Pictures Pictures Pictures

Thought I would post some pictures of the yard in it's infancy. 

The first photo is of the north side of the house. The grass back there was patchy, to put it nicely, and there was very little growing back there. I planted a bunch of edamame, which are doing quite well, in order to get more nitrogen in the super heavy clay soil and also to break up the soil a bit and create a little coverage for the bare ground. I ended up transplanting a few other squash/ bean seedling combinations so there should be even more ground cover back there very shortly. Though we are planning on sheet mulching most of the yard in the fall, it's important to get the soil working, if your soil has nothing to offer micro-organisms and other insects it doesn't really matter what you put on top of it.

The second picture is from the half barrel that sits in front of our house. There was a bunch of native ground cover already making itself quite happy there so I planted a watermelon in there as well. As it grows it should be able to cascade down the side of the planter and meander down the lawn out front.

This is a wild strawberry that I saved from a terrible death by mowing (from my neighbors lawn) and transplanted to a low, sandy, bare patch in the backyard. I transplanted a few others as well and if all goes right they will spread and cover the bare patch and we will have yummy berries.

This is the same side of the yard that the strawberries are planted in. If you can make it out, you'll notice a few of the squash transplants filling some patchy areas. This is also the fence that was completely over-run with the powdery mildewed Virginia Creeper. In the background you can see our make-shift compost bin. We had a large pile that was doing well but the squirrels became a bit pesky and we also decided that we wanted to plant some crops right where the pile was sitting. The box actually works pretty well and it was free which is always a plus.

My last picture for now, this is a shot of the wildflowers growing in the grass. I discovered an old metal garden fence when I was digging weeds out of the lawn one day and decided to recreate the garden that it once held. After placing a bunch of rocks to outline the space I just started planting. The grass is actually pretty decent ground cover, for now anyway, and I figured that if "weeds" can seed themselves in a lawn then purposefully placed seeds should be able to as well. All of the flower seedlings pictured here are from a "Save the Bees" mix, which just seemed perfect since we are trying to save the yard. This area is also going to be getting mulched in the fall which should do away with the grass entirely but this is working pretty well for the moment.

I'll post a few more pictures later today so you can see the rest of the yard. Remember, permaculture does not have to be perfect or pretty!