Fantasy: Living in an environmentally sustainable home with minimal energy usage and an integrated and abundant edible landscape.
Reality: 1. We let our lawn go gold to bring our water bill down. 2. I'm not super fond of getting dirty. & 3. I'm afraid of bugs.
Fear of bugs memory: When I was a teenager, my mom told me to go wash out my cat's water bowl. I obediently went to clean out the bowl, only to discover a slug on the rim of the bowl! I quickly ran screaming to Mom, but alas, I knew my fate when I saw the look on her face; I was about to get a character building lesson. There was a lot of staring, pacing, positive self talk, and calm breathing...but finally I had to take action (Mom said dinner was ready and I better hurry up). I flipped the bowl over and ran for cover. (Now that I'm thinking about this, where was Nancy?! And why didn't I use a stick?) When I finally calmed down enough to flipped the overturned bowl back over, I was relieved to discover that the slug had been dislodge. I cleaned the bowl, gave my cat fresh water and went inside to have dinner. I have no further recollection of what happened to the slug.
Return to present:
So our backyard is a barren landscape.
When Nancy & I moved in, the house was a flip so the landscape was not dead but after a year of not watering, the land became barren. After living in the house for a year. We discovered that we had crickets. Does everyone have crickets? You know those crickets people buy at the pet store to feed their pets? THEY ARE EVERYWHERE! Do they have a natural predator? Why are they everywhere?
In the first few weeks I discovered the cricket problem. I thought about getting an exterminator but I didn't want to spray poison everywhere. So long story short I started learning about permaculture. My rudimentary/instinctual understanding of the idea, has led me to hope that working on the environmental system of our house will lead to a healthier home environment...
The first step to healthy plants and bugs is healthy soil. This discovery led me down the path of waste management and composting. We have far from perfected our minimal waste production but you know we are trying.
So along with healthy compost, you can build up soil with the use of cover crops. To start using cover crops you have to decide what your soil needs. Before I learned about soil analysis I just did a random search on the internet and bought cover crop seeds that sounded cool. Oops. I ended up with Japanese buckwheat, alsike clover, and fava beans. After receiving the seeds I decided to look into each of these seeds a bit more.
Information takeaway:
Japanese buckwheat is good for attracting honey bees, adding beneficial organic matter, and helping with sandy soil. This sounded the most applicable to me.
Alsike clover likes moist environments. My backyard is definitely not moist.
Fava beans need to be sown over winter indoors or in a green house to harden them off so you reduce the risk of attracting black flies (oh mah gahhhh nooooOO) which looks as bad as it sounds (crying inside).
I did a bit more research about soil analysis. With my eyeballs I thought I had sandy soil. With actual testing, I think I have clay soil with some pockets of sandy soil. It feels gritty but it balls up in a clod. And now looking at the photos again, the dirt really does look like dried up clay dust.
I hoed a plot of dirt and soaked it with water with a few tools.
And this was the result. I'm showing the unprepared dirt next to the prepared dirt.
Return to present:
So our backyard is a barren landscape.
When Nancy & I moved in, the house was a flip so the landscape was not dead but after a year of not watering, the land became barren. After living in the house for a year. We discovered that we had crickets. Does everyone have crickets? You know those crickets people buy at the pet store to feed their pets? THEY ARE EVERYWHERE! Do they have a natural predator? Why are they everywhere?
In the first few weeks I discovered the cricket problem. I thought about getting an exterminator but I didn't want to spray poison everywhere. So long story short I started learning about permaculture. My rudimentary/instinctual understanding of the idea, has led me to hope that working on the environmental system of our house will lead to a healthier home environment...
The first step to healthy plants and bugs is healthy soil. This discovery led me down the path of waste management and composting. We have far from perfected our minimal waste production but you know we are trying.
So along with healthy compost, you can build up soil with the use of cover crops. To start using cover crops you have to decide what your soil needs. Before I learned about soil analysis I just did a random search on the internet and bought cover crop seeds that sounded cool. Oops. I ended up with Japanese buckwheat, alsike clover, and fava beans. After receiving the seeds I decided to look into each of these seeds a bit more.
Information takeaway:
Japanese buckwheat is good for attracting honey bees, adding beneficial organic matter, and helping with sandy soil. This sounded the most applicable to me.
Alsike clover likes moist environments. My backyard is definitely not moist.
Fava beans need to be sown over winter indoors or in a green house to harden them off so you reduce the risk of attracting black flies (oh mah gahhhh nooooOO) which looks as bad as it sounds (crying inside).
I did a bit more research about soil analysis. With my eyeballs I thought I had sandy soil. With actual testing, I think I have clay soil with some pockets of sandy soil. It feels gritty but it balls up in a clod. And now looking at the photos again, the dirt really does look like dried up clay dust.
After learning all this, I prepared to plant the buckwheat.
I hoed a plot of dirt and soaked it with water with a few tools.
And this was the result. I'm showing the unprepared dirt next to the prepared dirt.
I hope this is successful...
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