Edible Forest Garden 2: Zone 1, year 1

Mission: Get started on transforming the north-side lawn into an Edible Forest Garden (EFG). See the post Edible Forest Garden for more background.

In early spring 2011, we transformed only the western quarter of the lawn area—what we call Zone 1. After lots of reading and online sleuthing, I ordered small plants that would, I hoped, grow into trees and larger shrubs. Groundcovers and small perennials would come later.

When the plants arrived, we got to work. First, I set the cutting deck on the riding mower as low as it would go, and cut the lawn down to the soil line where possible. The goal was to shock the grass and convince it to not bother trying to regrow. Next, I scattered some pelletized dolomite to raise the pH of the soil (ours is mostly 5.5-5.9; 6.0-6.5 is my goal). Then I pitchforked (just “forked” if you want to be rural-hip) about 50 bales of straw, making a layer about 4” thick, and added the grass clippings and some wood ash.

Straw and clippings atop "scalped" lawn

Then Beth helped me distribute about 1-2” of prepared compost on everything, using a clever technique with a square piece of plywood.

 

By the way, this was early April—typically a rainy time here. 2011 was no exception!

 
Then we planted our trees and shrubs, which (at the time) were tiny things—nothing bigger than a 1-gallon pot, and most much smaller than that. We put down wet newspaper (10-15 sheets thick; we should have doubled that) around the plants.

We laid newspaper around the plant to avoid plant damage by the stiffer cardboard.

Then we spread cardboard everywhere, overlapping their edges and the newspaper to inhibit weeds. The cardboard came from our moving boxes, boxes associated with the house remodel, and boxes we scavenged from local stores.

Finally, we covered everything with about 4” of bark mulch, put black plastic down on the paths, and covered with the plastic with 3/8” minus gravel (we highly recommend this—our paths are holding up really well).

 

This was in early April 2011, so we had plenty of rain over the next couple of months. That kept everything moist, and spurred the decomposition of the newspaper and cardboard. In fact, the soil stayed moist throughout the dry months of the summer! Quite impressive.

When it came to weed suppression, the cardboard did fine with dandelions, groundsel, etc., but it couldn’t stop the bindweed, an insidious invasive that is very, very difficult to eradicate. Be thankful if you’ve never encountered it, and commiserate with me if you have. It popped up all summer long, but was only a moderate nuisance. In fact, the bindweed has been declining due to the subsequent work in the EFG (see other posts).