Mowing the Lawn vs No Dig Garden

I love to mow. I feel like Xena the Warrior Princess when I start up the engine with a confident yank. I suspect passers-by are secretly admiring my muscles when they see me start up the Masport. And afterwards, sitting in the backyard it occurs to me that admiring the short, tidy stubble is unreasonably satisfying. But, mowing in a symmetrical pattern and trimming nearby branches with zeal can lead to pedantic obsession. When you start having your cup of tea by the front door to avoid the back lawn you're desperate to mow, it's time to take stock.  When the weekly urge to mow the grass begins to grow into a deepening neurosis, you know it's time to....
Build a No-Dig Garden!!!

The only preparation is to have these things at the ready:

1. A barnyard* of poos (chook, cow, sheep, horse)
2. One big bale of hale
3. A stack of old newspapers
4. 10 or more handfuls worth of Blood and Bone

*The collective noun.

Two bags of each poo type for a strip of 4x1m leaves plenty of leftovers .

And it's all smooth sailing from there:

A more cost-efficient way to source the poo would be to head for the hills.... or a farm which would have this stuff in bountiful supply and probably at mates' rates. However, if you prefer to snuggle to the bosom of the nature-lovin city lady that is CERES, they're 10 bucks a pop at the resident nursery. 

Use some exact way of measuring out the space, e.g. taking one big stride to indicate a metre. Then, once you've worked out the area, pour three bags of black gold (sheep, cow and chook x1 each) to cover the grass (goodbye lawn, you trimmable temptress).

Lay newspapers thick (a good few week's worth of Saturday's Age should cover it). Then make them wet and soggy with the hose. 

Get yer gloves on for this bit. Bucket of Blood and Bone - handfuls of the stuff sprinkled over the top.

Cover with thick layer of hay ( I used the cheap grassy stuff, not fancy chickpea mulch). Sing 'Lay, Lady, Lay' to yourself while you do this. Replace the word 'brass' with 'grass'.

This bit gets exciting. Lay a bag of horse poo on top. This stuff we got from a farm out east. PACKED with fatty looking worms, which I didn't notice. But some resident ladies did.

 Disappoint the chooks by covering up the loot with more hay. And give it all a big soaking with the hose.

Then let it cook for a month or two. before seedlings go in. Peter Cundall and my mum reckon dolomite is also essential. They're probably right.

It's Vandalism, but Vandalism with Plants

       As a regular bystander/walkerby I genuinely enjoy any kind of street art. Street art, public art, graffiti, 'vandalism' * ; Stuff that people make or do, usually for free, for other people to see or interact with, usually for free. Massive concrete canvases completely covered in a plethora (eh? eh?) of colour and shape; tiny spaces on public walls meticulously tended to with ink; sculptures taking up empty patches of footpath; even the glorious simplicity of a snickering street wang (actually these are almost my favourite). 

* I'm not talking here about breaking stuff, or intentional destruction of stuff people like to use. 

They aren't always aesthetically pleasing. But neither were some of the spaces they were put on. They all give varying degrees of delight. They expect nothing back. There's no pressure to interact, only to observe. And think what you will.

So from here to gardening. Specifically. geurilla gardening. Phwoarrrr! What better threesome could there be in the world??? Public space, art and gardens! Graffiti gardens! Using the same basic principles of our spray can artists but using shovels and dirt instead. Taking the private out into the open to share. Can't paint or draw? Dig. 

The obvious appeal is the garden itself as a shared thing. The slightly less obvious appeal, however is the subtle dissent. Dig up a space WITHOUT PERMISSION and destroy it with er, flowers and plants. Yeah, take that!

It doesn't take a very long web search to find all sorts of exciting people taking on the streets at night with hoodies, hoes and shovels to become geurilla gardeners. 

Here's a guy, Steve Wheen from London, who does it in potholes:

 http://vimeo.com/41441550

He professed his inspiration came from this guy, Richard Reynolds, also from London, referred to as 'The Godfather of Geurilla Gardening' (nice title, mate): 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCy76mePNyo

And these ladies take on the dangerous but essentially dorky mission of 'Seed Bombing' with a spot of Dad's jokes thrown in for good measure:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWvp_EoRxY0&feature=related

When I went looking for a Melbourne-centred gang of rootsy rebels I was a bit disappointed to find the scene a little more murky. Stories about councils banning geurilla gardens and good intentions gone sour in the sporadic efforts of a few locals. And in the wikipedia article, even a mention of minor disputes between Melbourne geurilla gardeners over the true purpose of the illegal public garden.

* melbourne-leader.whereilive.com.au/news/story/council-looks-to-ban-guerrilla-gardens/ 

* melbourneartcritic.wordpress.com/tag/guerrilla-gardeners/

* en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guerrilla_gardening

It was heartwarming to finally come across Permablitz - a group that come hang out in your backyard of lawn for a day and help you turn it into a permaculture bonanza.

* www.permablitz.net/what-is-a-permablitz

(The tagline - 'Eating the suburbs, one backyard at a time' Rad).  Ok, so backyards aren't really public space. And in terms of breaking the rules, there's not much action. But it's a start at least. 

I feel like there's more to be seen about geurilla gardening in Melbourne. And I, for one am all for it.

So, anyone out there know of a good curb side or median strip?

In absence of Rage, Tiptoeing Gentle into the Night...Garden.

Ed's note: The lovely sounds of Bon Iver contributed to the soundtrack for this evening's keyboard tapping. Feel welcome to tune in for a few breezy minutes: http://www.boniver.org/ 


The last several weekends have seen this gardener hiding shamefully from her garden. In its stark abandonment (and moving by the minute) it rebelliously grows with hundreds of spindly bits across the ground. Webs of roots are bandying together, pushing upwards and outwards. Gangs of weeds stand around righteously. Everything that was once looking for a fight has overcome its primary adversary - me. 


I make flimsy, self-assuring conclusions in my head using words like "permaculture" and "self-seeding", whilst peering out the backdoor for a minute to decide that it's much too cold to start weeding...


I've come almost to a standstill in the garden. And all that stops me is  the cold and the darkness of a Melbourne winter and a creeping threat of eviction. In the absence of long glorious days of sun, I have weakened.
Friends, where to now?

Multiple Choice

A few weeks ago we were informed that our house's owner is putting it up for sale. 
This has resulted in a complete abandonment of the garden on my behalf, as I've mooned about thinking about the fruitlessness of it all (in all senses of the word).  Cue:

mel·o·dra·ma

   

[mel-uh-drah-muh, -dram-uh]  Show IPA

–noun

1.

a dramatic form that does not observe the laws of cause andeffect and that exaggerates emotion and emphasizes plot or action at the expense of characterization.   

So what with all the morose reflection (and new cynical positioning on ALL property owners) I've barely had time to consider that A. the house may take months to sell; B. that the process of confirming the sale takes 2 or so months; or C. that the new owner may prefer us to stay living in the house.  There is NO TIME to spend on such fickle thoughts. I have pity and doom to admininster!


In light of all the uncertainty, I am circling around it all like a dog scratching the dirt for an old bone. (Ed: Whatever was wrong with the simple but reliable 'dog with a bone' analagy? What's wrong with a bit of brevity?) 
I know myself enough to realise I am not much of a fatalist. It doesn't matter how many times I utter the old soother "everything will work itself out" I still struggle with not being in control of my own immediate future. So the action I've ended up taking is the equal and exact opposite: inaction.


The garden has started looking like a couple of bongers live here. The grass is wild.  What's living has gone to seed. The weeds picked out 3 weeks ago have given up being dead and just started to grow again wherever they were dumped. I venture as far as the back step, trying not to look. Whatever is in pots, I want to surround myself with. I try not to gaze ahead, but rather, turn my back on the hasbeen vegie wonderland. 


So here I sit at the crossroads of a mighty multiple choice decision: 


A. Let it go like a poor man's permaculture,  be done with what's done, collect my potted plants and start the heinous, yet hopeful search for a house and garden somewhere else?


B. Believe in the vaguely comforting promise of fate and all the favours it might owe me by continuing on with the garden loving in present state, disregarding what may or may not happen?


C. Refuse to move at any stage in the process, build a garden jungle, and squat til the police have to mandhandle me out the door in nothing but my wellingtons?






cripes, its lucky I don't have any real problems. 

Eating my words. And snow peas.

In my last post I was settling in for a sure state of inaction and an unforgiving stalemate between the garden and I. Nothing was changing. Some things looked sickly. I was reading too much about what gardens are supposed to have.  Then I took off for 10 days on christmas holidays, leaving the garden maintenance to two friends (and geez aren't friends great things).  Although they both know how to water a plant, I  felt I needed to leave them an essay on what to do anyway. 

In the first few days away, I pretended to be nonchalant and indifferent. pfff, so what about it..? I don't care what happens...  Eventually I gave in and fretted the whole time about the garden I'd fallen out with only a week ago. 

When we got back home, tired and sore from a long day of travel, I raced out back with the torch, squinting to see the state of things.  And geeps! things were great. Green; growing; fruit developing; stalks longer; plants taller; stems giving way to flowering buds. It was as if the garden has been holding out until I left to finally relax and do what it does. 

So the beans have reached the height of the fence. Green tomatoes are appearing on our biggest plants. Capsicums have arrived -even on the sickly plant! (gosh, what a trooper). Peas have appeared on incidental creepers from the pea straw I lay down as mulch. The potatoes are flowering. And the sunflowers are about to bust with yellow brilliance. The rose bushes are as tall as I am and are boasting  posh and pretty pink flowers. 

KK and Ames - thank you lovely ladies!  You'll be feasting on our first bowl of  "Joey's Salad au Gardin". 

I have a garden. And it is magnificent. 

*editor's note - the author reserves the right to publish non-grammatical sentences for the sake of creative licence. Lower-case letters after punctuation marks are not strictly correct and the author wishes to advise that these are her own personal grammatical manipulations and do not represent the grammar choices of the wider community.