Lawn into Lunch
HappyEarth
3 Comments
Would you rather be able to get an amazingly fresh and tasty lunch from right outside your back step than have to drive down to the supermarket? Sounds good to us! We’re on a mission to transform our lawn into lunch.
Now most people would sensibility start small. But we decided to tackle the whole lawn in one day - about 600 square metres of it. So off we went with a turf cutter, cutting the grass and flipping it over in an attempt to kill that ever so vigorous kikuyu. Yes we almost killed ourselves in the process – turf cutters have a mind of their own, and lawn is not exactly the lightest thing to flip over!
But our future fruit trees will love us for replacing the kikuyu (which they really don’t like), with non invasive grasses like cow pea, millet, pintos peanut and clover (which they love). And we were able to keep with the organic nature of our place and not use any chemical weedkillers.
We baked the flipped over lawn for a week, spread a bit of top soil ontop, and sowed some soil improving seeds. The ever invasive kikuyu is trying to make a comeback, but we’re keeping ontop of it by hand weeding. And we’re looking forward to having the most luscious, organic supermarket in our own backyard!
Reader Comments (3)
Looks like a huge job but well worth the effort when the garden goes in. What are you going to plant in regards to trees? Have you seen Daleys nursery website. They have a great catalougue?
Hi Karan,
Yes ... it will be well worth the effort when we are literally feasting on the fruits of our labour!!!
In the short term we plan to grow mainly soil improving shrubs and trees such as acacias, bleeding hearts, leucanea etc. In the autumn we plan to plant out most of our fruit trees. Its cooler then, less time needed to irrigate the new trees, and by the time spring comes around next year they will have developed a good root system that requires less looking after.
We plan to put in over 120 fruits trees and shrubs ranging from Abiu to White Sapote. You can find out the full list of fruit trees we plan to grow by checking out our Fruit Trees Article:
http://www.happyearth.com.au/fruit-trees/
I have checked out Daleys website before thanks. We've been to their nursery in Kyogle and highly recommend their fruit trees. Most of our fruit trees come from their nursery. We drool when we read through their catalougue with all the amazing fruits on offer :)
If you still want a bit of lawn but want it usable, try planting creeping thyme, you don't need to mow it, you can walk on it and you can use it to cook with.