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.

The Death of a Thousand Worms

Well, Lettucegate cut me up. But since then, a genuine tragedy has left me really bereft. And I've a heavy guilt over the thousands of little lives so senselessly lost.


 A near-mass suicide occurred in my garden after the 2-day 40 degree heatbash. As the days wore on, handfuls of innocent tiger worms scrambled southward in the worm farm in an attempt to escape the rising temperature blasting against the black plastic of their little 3 storey apartment. The only place cooler? The basement pool. That's right, readers. My lovely little hermaphroditic invertebrates had nowhere else to go but to the deep wells of their own liquified poo. 


While I lay about inside, cursing the lethal combination of new year's eve and German ciders, my favourite vermiculturalists were out there struggling for their lives! 


A few days later, after a short storm, I went to collect the worm wee overflow from the bucket, ignorant of the carnage in the bottom. As I tipped the water out onto the thirsty plants a few thousand blind recyclers slid out too. All I could manage at first was to stand there, pointlessly trying to sheild them from the sun and hoping for some signs of life. There were a tiny few, wriggling slowly and looking for a downward retreat, but most lay still. Very, very still. 


Of those left alive, I hadn't the heart to return to the recent final resting place of their many friends and loved ones. So I crouched down, dutifully digging the few survivors some new doorways into the soil of the flower bed. I hoped they didn't think it callous of me to use the same patch as a makeshift buriel spot for those "passed on"... I ignored the rumours I'd heard that tiger worms don't actually dig soil (pun intended) much and hoped they might enjoy whatever goods lay underfoot in their newfound freedom. 


Charles Darwin was scientifically besotted with the worm (a much more reliable romance than the traditional besot). In 1881 he pretty much declared them the coolest of all the animals, (which is fairly impressive for a brainless soft-bodied organism):

It may be doubted whether there are many other animals 

which have played so important a part in the history of the world..

http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/framesetitemID=F1357&viewtype=text&pageseq=1 


And I couldn't agree more. Charlie would probably roll in his grave if he knew of the deaths I'd callously caused here. I'm sorry Charles. And I'm very sorry my little wormy comrades. 


RIS (Rest in Soil).