elodieunderglass:
oldearthaccretionist:
systlin:
lastxleviathan:
systlin:
systlin:
Okay. Gardening 101; or “Auntie Sys I have a yard that’s currently a yard and don’t know SHIT or FUCK about how to make it not be a boring-ass yard.”
Step 1; go to your local landfill and get all of the newspaper you can. Cardboard will also work. If your neighborhood puts them out for recycling, go around and grab them all like a little newspaper goblin.
Step 2; acquire mulch. If you WANT, you can go pay for it at a garden store, but we’re all cheap lazy bitches here so screw that. Most landfills will collect yard waste and branches and chip them into woodchips, which you can get for PENNIES or FREE. Go load up on that good shit.
I like straw too, which I can get for barter because I am related to half the people around here and a solid 65% of my extended family are farmers. I give Uncle Daryl three quarts of elderberry jelly or a couple pounds of morels in spring and he loads me up with straw bales.
Step 3; figure what parts of grass you want to be not-grass, and cover that shit in newspaper, good and thick. 5-10 layers. It helps to wet the newspaper to keep it from blowing away as you work.
Now, cover that newspaper with a good thick layer of mulch.
Congrats, you’re removing the grass. It’ll starve to death under the mulch and newspaper and rot into compost. You now have garden beds and have not dug one single bit of sod.
If you can’t wait for six months to plant, pull the mulch aside, cut a hole in the newspaper, and dig out a plug of sod the size of the planting hole. Throw some compost in there and plant. Tuck mulch back around plant. Water well.
There ya go. Garden beds. In a year, when you pull back the mulch the newspaper will be almost rotted away, and the soil underneath soft and loamy.
I like to edge garden beds like this with rocks, which I can ALSO get for free because I live in the part of Iowa dotted with limestone quarries. Just, pick that shit up along the road and
I’m collecting flat ones for a FREE crazy paving path too.
I love you for this.
No prob.
Protip; the best way to do a large area without killing your knees or back is to load up a bucket of water with newspaper, sit down on the grass, and sorta scoot your ass along as you drag the bucket with you, newspapering as you go.
Then dump buckets of mulch on that and spread it out with your feet. Just sorta kick it where you want it to be.
Source; my 61 year old mom with bad knees.
![[profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
elodieunderglass relevant to your previous post on how to actually turn grass into garden beds if that’s a thing someone wants to do (i.e. “please don’t just dig it up”).
I share only in case you wanted to share a really good how to.
(referencing this post) This is a strange example of tumblr synchronicity. I hadn’t seen this post, but we are clearly on the same train of thought today! Yes, for the sake of any gods you wish to invoke, let’s not dig up lawns. Let us not begin relationships with plantcraft with admonishments to strangers to dig up lawns or “get rid of” lawns. Let us not assume that everyone owns property in the same region of North American suburbia, and let us not assume that grass is just a type of flooring - a boring sort of terraformed Astroturf that should be replaced with “better” plants - but let us remember that grass is part of the environment, and it should be dealt with accordingly. Let us remember that every environment is unique, and that plantcraft is rooted quite literally in the environment, and practiced by people with different needs and abilities. Let us remember that the environment is diverse, and the colonialist Eurocentric vision of a “pretty ecosystem” that looks suspiciously like an English cottage garden is in many ways inferior to a strip of plain, pristine, unbroken prairie in its natural setting. Let us understand, and even appreciate, that some environments may not seem “pretty” or “useful” or “productive” or “ideologically correct” to our eyes, but that they may still serve ecological and social needs, which can be different from our own desires. AND LET US NOT DIG UP LAWNS.
if we really want our lawns to die by our hands, we must kill them humanely!
If I accomplish one (1) scicomm goal in 2019, I want it to be “getting anti-lawn-culture folks to stop telling everyone to ~*~*dig up their lawns~*~ and replace this discourse with something educational, evidence-based, actionable, practical, and ACTUALLY ENVIRONMENTALLY FRIENDLY, with the belief that those are indeed THE ACTUAL END GOALS.”
If you wish to kill your lawn, please do it humanely. systlin’s instructions are approved. Thank you.
http://bit.ly/2Wc2EEK
from Tumblr http://bit.ly/2DHxUnV
via IFTTT
oldearthaccretionist:
systlin:
lastxleviathan:
systlin:
systlin:
Okay. Gardening 101; or “Auntie Sys I have a yard that’s currently a yard and don’t know SHIT or FUCK about how to make it not be a boring-ass yard.”
Step 1; go to your local landfill and get all of the newspaper you can. Cardboard will also work. If your neighborhood puts them out for recycling, go around and grab them all like a little newspaper goblin.
Step 2; acquire mulch. If you WANT, you can go pay for it at a garden store, but we’re all cheap lazy bitches here so screw that. Most landfills will collect yard waste and branches and chip them into woodchips, which you can get for PENNIES or FREE. Go load up on that good shit.
I like straw too, which I can get for barter because I am related to half the people around here and a solid 65% of my extended family are farmers. I give Uncle Daryl three quarts of elderberry jelly or a couple pounds of morels in spring and he loads me up with straw bales.
Step 3; figure what parts of grass you want to be not-grass, and cover that shit in newspaper, good and thick. 5-10 layers. It helps to wet the newspaper to keep it from blowing away as you work.
Now, cover that newspaper with a good thick layer of mulch.
Congrats, you’re removing the grass. It’ll starve to death under the mulch and newspaper and rot into compost. You now have garden beds and have not dug one single bit of sod.
If you can’t wait for six months to plant, pull the mulch aside, cut a hole in the newspaper, and dig out a plug of sod the size of the planting hole. Throw some compost in there and plant. Tuck mulch back around plant. Water well.
There ya go. Garden beds. In a year, when you pull back the mulch the newspaper will be almost rotted away, and the soil underneath soft and loamy.
I like to edge garden beds like this with rocks, which I can ALSO get for free because I live in the part of Iowa dotted with limestone quarries. Just, pick that shit up along the road and
I’m collecting flat ones for a FREE crazy paving path too.
I love you for this.
No prob.
Protip; the best way to do a large area without killing your knees or back is to load up a bucket of water with newspaper, sit down on the grass, and sorta scoot your ass along as you drag the bucket with you, newspapering as you go.
Then dump buckets of mulch on that and spread it out with your feet. Just sorta kick it where you want it to be.
Source; my 61 year old mom with bad knees.
elodieunderglass relevant to your previous post on how to actually turn grass into garden beds if that’s a thing someone wants to do (i.e. “please don’t just dig it up”).I share only in case you wanted to share a really good how to.
(referencing this post) This is a strange example of tumblr synchronicity. I hadn’t seen this post, but we are clearly on the same train of thought today! Yes, for the sake of any gods you wish to invoke, let’s not dig up lawns. Let us not begin relationships with plantcraft with admonishments to strangers to dig up lawns or “get rid of” lawns. Let us not assume that everyone owns property in the same region of North American suburbia, and let us not assume that grass is just a type of flooring - a boring sort of terraformed Astroturf that should be replaced with “better” plants - but let us remember that grass is part of the environment, and it should be dealt with accordingly. Let us remember that every environment is unique, and that plantcraft is rooted quite literally in the environment, and practiced by people with different needs and abilities. Let us remember that the environment is diverse, and the colonialist Eurocentric vision of a “pretty ecosystem” that looks suspiciously like an English cottage garden is in many ways inferior to a strip of plain, pristine, unbroken prairie in its natural setting. Let us understand, and even appreciate, that some environments may not seem “pretty” or “useful” or “productive” or “ideologically correct” to our eyes, but that they may still serve ecological and social needs, which can be different from our own desires. AND LET US NOT DIG UP LAWNS.
if we really want our lawns to die by our hands, we must kill them humanely!
If I accomplish one (1) scicomm goal in 2019, I want it to be “getting anti-lawn-culture folks to stop telling everyone to ~*~*dig up their lawns~*~ and replace this discourse with something educational, evidence-based, actionable, practical, and ACTUALLY ENVIRONMENTALLY FRIENDLY, with the belief that those are indeed THE ACTUAL END GOALS.”
If you wish to kill your lawn, please do it humanely. systlin’s instructions are approved. Thank you.
http://bit.ly/2Wc2EEK
from Tumblr http://bit.ly/2DHxUnV
via IFTTT
