Now that I’m writing about our garden, I’m amazed at how much variety, and how many things, we have in our yard. In addition to a couple of hundred kinds of plants and twenty (yes 20!) trees, we have two large trellises, 2 arbors, 5 paths, 2 seating areas (and a bench), 3 birdbaths and a compost bin, a compost tumbler and a worm bin. That’s not counting the front porch (with its trellises) and the screened in back deck (12′ x 26′). All on a 60′ x 150′ lot that’s more than 50% house, driveway and carport. There are also two rain barrels (with more to come), but that’s another post in the near future.

So let’s talk about soil amendment. When we moved into this house, the front yard had two very old, very large trees and a little grass. The soil had a lot of hard packed North Carolina clay and the trees sucked up all the moisture and nutrients. Add the shade from the trees and even the grass had trouble getting a foothold.

The back yard we was a steep slope that we leveled with dirt from our newly dug out basement. Dirt that hadn’t seen sunlight in over 50 years. AND it had the same clay content, of course, as the rest of the yard.

Trust me when I say that it was difficult growing things. Sherry has a green thumb (which you get by reading everything and learning everything you can about growing things) so she could get things to grow, but it was frustrating.

I have long lived by the motto “Every boy needs a pickup truck”, and now the value of that phrase came alive. It was time to amend the soil. There was no shortage of leaf mulch here. All of our neighbor have really big trees. And every fall the city dutifully hauls away everyone’s leaves from the curb. In the spring, they give away free leaf mulch — all you have to do is come and get it. And I have a truck! We’ve done that every year since we’ve been here, and we’re still doing it. And not just one truck load (it’s a 1/4 ton truck). In the early years we would get 10 truck loads. As soon as we would unload one, I’d go back and get in line for another. Lots of leaf mulch.

And we had some topsoil brought in, too. You have to be careful with that. Not everyone who says they sell topsoil is really selling good soil. Sometimes it’s the same stuff you’re trying to amend, so you have to do your homework here. We were leveling both the front and back yards, and even building up a few areas with small walls, so we were able to use quite a bit. And remember that leaf mulch breaks down pretty quickly, so that big pile you have this fall will work its way down into the soil by spring, and the next fall you’ll need more. We only get one or two truckloads each year now, but we’re still getting free leaf mulch.

And then we grew alfalfa… That’s right, alfalfa. Right here in the middle of the city. It grows really fast and adds a lot of nitrogen to the soil, both while it’s growing and when you till it under. So one summer, I think we grew and “plowed” under 3 or 4 “crops” of alfalfa. I thought it was cool. The neighbors may have thought it was a little strange. I’m surprised no one called the city and said “Their grass is REALLY high”. When we started that, we never say ANY worms in the yard. NONE. The ground was just too hard. Remember that I said that the tiller just bounced when I first started using it? It was like tilling a boulder. But by the very next year, we had worms. That is… the yard had worms. That’s a good sign.

Compost.  For a while we just piled up our yard waste and turned it once in a while.  We couldn’t use kitchen waste because it attracted vermin.  Then we tried a wire enclosure so that we could make a bigger pile, but eventually we bought some of the large plastic variety.  Right now, the “where does that go?” path leads under an arbor to a cement apron.  On one end of the apron is the compost bin.  It has a removable top and no bottom.  We just add to it during the growing season and about once a month I lift the whole box up and set it (empty) on the other end of the apron.  Then I load the debris back into the bin, which does a good job of turning it.  We stop adding to it in the fall, but we keep turning it.   And in the spring, voila, dirt.  Nice black dirt.

We also have a compost tumbler.  It works fine.  In fact, if you turn it regularly (and it’s easy to tumble), it does a better job of breaking down the material than the other one does.  But it doesn’t hold nearly as much and it’s more difficult to use because the opening you add to is fairly high off the ground.  But still, it’s a good addition, and people always comment on it (the other one’s better, though).

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