My Garden - in zone 9.

Thoughts and ruminations about soil barriers

2010-05-19T08:08:00.000-07:00

Hmm. What should I use to separate the new garden soil from the old crapgrass soil in the raised beds?

I was thinking that I'd putdown a half inch layer of old junkmail and/or cardboard as a weed barrier, pest barrier (kinda) and maybe for some moisture retention.

What do you use? What do you think?

Flower bed, too?

2010-05-10T08:49:00.000-07:00

I'm thinking that we might need a flower bed, too... it will be on the south end of the yard. Nothing super fancy... SOmething like what you see below. Now....what should I plant?

Powertools...

2010-05-10T06:13:00.000-07:00

Well, it looks like the SODCUTTER is the key. Thanks, BillH!

There will be some obstacles....

2010-05-09T10:42:00.001-07:00

So, the backyard is NOT in perfect shape. There are some existing Agapanthus that MIGHT stay...but probably not. There are two or three of them up against the house.

Here you can see the Agapanthus (up against the house) and the area that will become the garden:

There is some existing English Ivy on the block wall to the right of the yard that is coming over from the neighbor's side...I am thinking maybe some Clematis or something to take it's place. Here it is:

The "grass" is really not grass at all...it's some sort of crabgrass with a ton of foxtails, so we'll need to get rid of that. How do you get rid of an entire backyard of grass? Is there a machine that you can use to cut below the surface and then roll up the craPgrass and take it away?

More in a bit...

Here's the yard:

New garden space

2010-05-09T10:29:00.000-07:00

So....we're moving. From a condo with a patio that has little to no space to a house with a pretty sizable yard (by coastal southern California standards). I'll finally have some garden space. Maybe 12' by 18' or so....I can probably go a little wider, too. YIPEE!! We move in 20 days. Until then I'll need to be thinking of what to plant in the garden....and in the rest of the yard. I'd like plant things to attract all sorts of beneficials. My garden will be in raised beds. Here's my lame rendering if the backyard: (I'm not sure why the drawing doesn't all show up...it doesn't show the entire width.)