Suburban Permaculture Project

The next step in our garden installation is to start the front yard conversion.

Of course, it's not like we've finished the previous steps, but simultaneous projects never hurt anybody, right?

We decided we should take advantage of our willing house-guest while we have him, so we are tackling the section of lawn between the driveway and sidewalk as soon as we can get our materials together, which will take about a week. I'm headed out of town next weekend, so I don't know if they will work on it then, but certainly the weekend after we can get a start on it.

This is the smallest section of lawn to deal with, so it seems a good place to start. It has a large shade tree in it, and we will be putting a brick patio into place between the tree and the sidewalk, then installing the walkways and raised beds gryphynshadow  planned in the rest of that area. This means, of course, that we need to do something about the lawn.

I Googled "sod removal" and came up with this article. Of the methods available, we'll actually be using two. The physical removal of sod via shovel (for the patio area) and the smother method for the garden/walkway area.

This begs the question of how long it might take for the sod to die, given that the grass is dormant now. I am guessing we can smother it, put the garden beds and walkways over it, and let it do it's decomposing thing under all of that, rather than waiting.

We shall see.

Pics to follow as the project progresses! Wish us luck. :)