I’ll admit that I am right where some of the books warn you about. Analysis paralysis. There is so much that I want to do with this yard, so many new ideas that I have learned and want to implement. But my brain is on overload and I’m feeling a bit intimidated about trying to assemble that permaculture garden and making sure I’ve got it right. I’m going to try to not worry too much about making it perfect, I can always rip things out and start over if I need to.
The books that I read all say to take a baby steps, don’t do more than you can handle at a time. My heart is telling me to do it all but I know my time is limited (having a toddler really cuts into your weekend warrior plans). So then where to do I start and where do I draw the line on the “to do” list this year? That’s where I’m stuck.
The Plan
When we decided to have a fence installed around our back yard last year, we had a survey of the property boundary done. My husband and I are both engineers with access to Autocad so we now have an electronic copy of our property. We measured a few other key features and added them to the drawing as well so it is close to scale. I printed out a few copies and have been sketching on them for a couple of months now. My “final” sketch is far from a work of art but it works for me. I use quotes around the word “final” because I’m sure that it will change as we start working and find constraints and better ideas.
Reuse That Rain
The circles at the corners of the house are where I would like to add rain barrels. Capture and reuse of rainwater is mentioned in all of the sources that I have read. The water that comes from the hose at most of our houses in this country contains chlorine which is not ideal for growing strong plants. Captured rainwater does not contain chlorine so when we water our garden with it, we save our gardens from the chemicals and save our money by not picking up the hose. Free water? Yes please!
Put It Back In The Ground
The thick, black lines are locations where I want to install infiltration trenches to capture runoff from the greenhouse roof and the property to the south. So much of our rainwater today is whisked away to a storm drain as quickly as possible and not given the chance to soak into the soil and hydrate it like it did before it was covered in impervious surfaces.
Gaia’s Garden mentioned a man whose gardens rarely needed to be watered due to the snow melting in the mountains uphill of his property. The water infiltrates into the ground and slowly seeps through the soil as it travels to lower elevations. His yard benefits from that water seepage and he rarely needs to water manually. Our yard appears to be high in clay content so it is not very conducive to infiltration. There are ways to increase the spongey-ness of the soil and I will try to implement those to the maximum extent possible. Even if it doesn’t work, the water that gets into those trenches will have to go somewhere eventually, it may just be very slowly. At the very least I will have created a path to direct the water straight to garden areas.
More Gardens, Less Grass
I’ve indicated some possible extents of new gardens because we definitely don’t have enough space for everything I want to grow. There is also an area noted as “open area” for our daughter to run around in. I know what you’re thinking: “Open area? As in grass?” Not really. The plan is to add some clover to the area and let it take over the grass. My grass trained brain is cringing at this, I can hear the comments now: “the weeds have really taken over your lawn…” The lawn is already in sad shape with bare spots and a ton of hill violets spreading quickly. Clover will provide for our pollinators, add nitrogen to the soil, and is much less maintenance than grass. Hooray for less mowing!
Pinterest Dreams
There are BIG plans for the front yard and I want it to look like one of those pins everyone adds to their Pinterest boards. I plan to save this for next year since I want to get more of the edible gardens in the back yard going right now. The front yard will have some edible plantings but since it is on the north side of the house and there are two trees, shade prevails there and limits what can be planted. However it will be a pollinator haven with some edible plantings mixed in. I can’t wait for the neighbors to wander over and ask about that kale growing in the front yard!
So those are the plans. This year the plan is to get two rain barrels operational (they’ll be delivered in the next few weeks!), the trenches on both sides of the greenhouse and expand the gardens in the back yard. Now if I can just decide on which gardens to construct first!
This coming weekend looks like nice weather so we are planning some yard work which I hope to fill you in on in the next post. Do you have any big garden plans you are working on?