Lawn Gone - Part 1: Creating a Food Garden in a NE Seattle Front Yard

The Urban Farmers guild of Sustainable NE Seattle descended on Joann's front lawn (with her cooperation) one November morning, to prepare it for growing food in the Spring. One half was prepared with a sod-cutter, and other half was sheet-mulched.

Part 2:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZiBgC4Lstd4
Part 3:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqqm_bOSB2A

Category:

Howto & Style

Tags:

• permaculture
• sheet-mulch
• transition
• town
• food-security

[EbolaV1rus]

Great idea! But what about the wind blowing the leaves off/around?

[leobro]

The owner was worried about that when the winds came up, but surprisingly the leaves stayed put - probably because they were wet from rain. As they decompose, they get mushy and tend to stick.

[GrowSomethingGreen]

This is awesome, I'm gonna try this in part of my backyard in Arizona to compost our clay soil

[inremembranceofruth]

Where is my permaculture/edible food forest man (I am 52)?! So disheartened by nothing but lawn and conventional landscaping afficionados:(

[lateafternoon88]

This is great to see, how far even Seattle has come. We were doing this thirteen years ago on N 61st, and our neighbors thought we were just crazy Californians! Now look what the Seatlites are doing! More food, less turf, yeah! Thanks for producing this video.

[tribalwind]

beautiful :)

[tribalwind]

@OregonArborist

whoah. you've actually spammed your own crazy blog to every mention of sheet mulching on the internet. what is this anti-garden/sheet mulch Disinformation campaign you're on dude? did citizens united and carl rove put ya up to this

[bigtimerip1]

@crewlla We do get an occasional snowfall of consequence but i did not experience any wash out of earth or plants, even throughout our heavy rainfalls. I continue to layer organic material onto the beds with soil mixed in and none of it runs off (despite living on a hill). I did notice that larger pieces of wood chips seem to float away near the sidewalks but that was pretty much it. My pathways just absorb rain or snow.

[crewlla]

dont you get snow? I live in canada and I did the same thing with the front yard and back yard but I had to put up raised beds because we get so much snow that when it melts there would be mud all over our lawn and front step. did you have any problems with snow or the rain washing out the plants?

[ceresion]

@jihadacadien check out Lawn Gone 3 and you can see the results. This garden has been a blessing in more than one way.

[ceresion]

@OregonArborist I actually watered very little due to the high mulching factor. Lots of dying leaves and grass clippings keep the soil moist.

[ceresion]

@Hamish121212 It was an experiment to see whether the sod would decompose enough to plant into in the first season or just be a weed problem. The sod died fully enough to plant into plus I continue to add mulch. We did sheet mulch on the sod in the front portion of the yard.