Fall is for planting (from October)

Or at least the botanical garden likes to tell people that the fall is the best time to plant native wildflowers and other plants. So, as my summer vegetables are limping along and still producing a little bit, I'm working today on the flower garden. I've been gradually turning the "grass" in our front yard into a native plant area to attract pollinators and to just plain look pretty. Today, while David is at work (I'm working this weekend so I'm off during the week) I can work on messing up his grass mowing patterns :)




There are many methods out there for making this transition. One of the easiest is to cover the grass and kill it and then plant things on top of it (keeps the nutrients there from the grass). But that takes a while and I want to get plants in the ground today. The solution is that I'm stripping off the layer of grass, digging out the yummy Carolina clay, putting in topsoil/compost and then adding the plants and mulch. There is something strangely satisfying about swinging a pickaxe at the ridiculous clay that is my yard.






Then the hard part of digging holes in a clay and gravel soil begins. After a day's worth of labor (or at least a few hours), I had a hole about a foot deep covering the ground I wanted for this part of the garden addition. I even found the remains of an old pipe or culvert that was made out of clay.


In case you're wondering, all of the grass and clay stay here at the Cranford casa. I use the grass to try and establish grass in other parts of the yard and the dirt goes to even out other spots in the yard. We try to not throw "away" anything- that whole sustainability, low impact thing. Unfortunately we don't produce enough mulch and compost here to keep up with the growing garden so I have to bring that in to supplement the home grown stuff.