As for the food…we had our city deliver some leaves to our house this year. We don’t have much room on our lot so we had them dumped in the driveway and on the lawn. We had to get the pile off the lawn first otherwise it would kill off the grass and just look unsightly. It took us a few days to get it done but we did it. We’ve got 5′x20′ area covered in cardboard and topped with 3′ of leaves and we are still adding compost into the pile.

Some people ask us why we are using leaves. The main reason is that we want to do it as cheap as possible and leaves do turn into soil. Rich soil. Our house also sits on an old spring bed so it’s quite rocky and it would take a lot of time to get all the weeds out of the ground. I feel that this is going to give us the best growing medium while using the least amount of monetary resources. It may take a bit more time but with some attention to detail and an active approach to helping the compost along I think we will have a really great spot to grow food in.

I signed up for an account, uploaded some pics of things I’m not in need of anymore and sent out my first trade today. My package is on its way to Bellingham, WA and it contains cloth diapers and a few special items for a new mama. In return I’m getting a $50 iTunes card. Sweet! So if you want to do some swapping yourself while you are lounging at home then head on over to SwapMamas.com. But you don’t have to be a mama to find something there. Even the papas have a special little place. Be sure to check for your local SwapMama group so you can keep things even cleaner by staying local.

Just a heads up. I think the site is pretty new and it does have a few awkward kinks. If you post desirable items and get a lot of response it can be somewhat overwhelming as the commenting/messaging system doesn’t flow very well. So if you get frustrated don’t worry, it’s not just you. Just take it easy and don’t worry about making an immediate trade. Just wait until you see something that really works for you.

Summer Squash – Italian Zuchinni
Fast, healthy growth of course. We only had one plant since the other two didn’t survive but we still managed to have enough zuchinni to keep us satisfied.

Summer Squash – Ron de Nice
We planted two of these that we grew from seed. Fast growth also with lots of vegetables. This is the summer squash that we ate most often and I loved it because it coud be stuffed or sliced since they are round and oh-so-cute.

Tomato – Oregon Spring
Of course they did great. Super good tomato with hardly any seeds. Love it!

Tomato -

Bell Pepper -
Bell Pepper -
Cantaloupe – I grew this heirloom variety cantaloupe from seed and I really didn’t get the starts big enough before setting them out so they had a slow start. Some  melons  did start but we were never able to harvest and enjoy them since they didn’t ripen. I am trying these again next year but putting them in a really hot spot.

Watermelon – I had the same experience with these as I did the cantaloupe. I’ll be trying these again too.

Cucumber – Japanese Climbing
I love having climbing cucumbers because it saves on space to trellis them and they trellis so easy since you don’t have to give the cucumbers any extra support. We enjoyed lots of Cucumber-Tomato Salads from the abundance that we harvested from just two of these plants.

Cucumber – Lemon
Some surprise Dahlias popped up in the garden and I never moved them. Their presence shadowed the one lemon cucumber plant we had. Thankfully my neighbor, whom I gave two other Lemon Cucumber starts, graciously shared her prolific harvest. Yum yum.

Basil -
I planted my basil near the base of the tomato plants. It did well here while being offered a bit of shade  during some of the hot days. I’m still harvesting basil now.

Strawberry – unknown variety
I don’t know what happened with these strawberries that I planted in the spring but we  didn’t get but a few berries from about 16 plants. I have planted some more strawberries in a different lettuce bed and those are producing better right now. I’ll have to  get some information about growing strawberries .

Lettuce – Mesculun mix
Harvest quickly when the leaves are still small and tender and the lettuce won’t bolt.

Lettuce – Rocky Top blend
This lettuce bolted quickly and when it wasn’t bolting I thought that the texture wasn’t very crisp. I’m a mesculun kinda girl.

Share what’s growing in your garden.

The raspberries that we planted are doing great. They have tons of new growth on them and some are even producing flowers for berries. An Indian Summer and some bees would do us good.

I realized how inefficiently I used some of the garden space we had so I do have better plans for next year. I’ve cleared out most of the summer vegetables to make room for a fall crop which includes: brocolli, brussel sprouts, chard, red cabbage, radish and a variety of lettuce.

Find out what worked well and what didn’t in our Eugene, Oregon garden.

Roasted Chickpeas

2 cans Organic Garbanzo beans, drained and rinsed
1 Tb. Olive oil
1 Tb. Sea Salt

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Drain the cans of chickpeas or the water from fresh ones and toss them in the olive oil and sea salt. Place a sheet of parchment paper on a baking pan for even cooking. Spread the chick peas out in one layer and cook for about 45 minutes. There is no need to turn the chick peas. Store in a glass jar.

Copycat Larabar recipe

1 1/2 C. Organic Raisins
2 C. Walnut Halves or Almonds
2/3 C. Ground Flax Seed
1/4 C. fine coconut (optional)

I started with the walnuts and ground them in my food processor. Once they were fine I transferred them to a bowl. Next I placed the raisins in the food processor and chopped them up a bit. They are going to get sort of gooey and clumpy but don’t worry. Once the raisins are done add the walnuts and ground flax seed into the food processor so that you have all ingredients except the coconut in the food processor. Grind it all together until the color is even. Shape into balls or whatever other shape you like. Roll in the coconut. Store in an airtight container.

I’ll experiment with some more copycat Larabar recipes but for now this is what I’ve got. I’ll try an Apple Pie one next.

Over the winter I was given a book by my good friend Sarah titled Food not Lawns by Heather Coburn Flores. I read through parts of the book and was inspired to add to the land that I called home whether I was still calling the same place home in 2, 3, or 5 years. I was taught as a child to always leave places we stayed better than we found them, this included campsites too. So the idea of it came easy to me, I could help my community by growing food in the dirt surrounding my house. Maybe I would trade produce with the lady across the street for her eggs or maybe I could give someone in need the healthiest food they would eat all week. And when I left this place, someone else would continue to enjoy the freshness that came from this landscape.

We did of course clear an area for a vegetable garden and sooner than later I determined that this just wasn’t enough space and we would turn our lawn into food sooner than we planned. I envisioned all of the things we could plant that would harvest food; raspberries, blueberries, watermelons, the assortment of vegetables that we are all familiar with and more. And then I rethought it and moved boxes around in my mind, re-organized garden beds and even thought of interesting things to plant.

I know some people find it difficult to see the end result of gardens and landscapes and if you are one of those people I want to help you see where the beginning starts and that there is no wrong way to do it. If you are an accomplished gardener then you can follow along, add some of your ideas to the comments and maybe even find some inspiration of your own.

This is the beginning of our lawn to food journey and here is where we started.

-August 2009 -

We were given some raspberry starts during the heat of the summer. They came to us bare root in a bucket full of water. There was not any time to delay the planting of these gems as roots sitting in water will rot so we dug up a small area and put them in the dirt. Although they are wilting a bit from the heat we have them mulched with leaves and we water them well.

Our city has a lot of deciduous trees so we can get leaf drop offs and leaves along with compostable paper bags are what we will be using to kill of some of the grass. It’s the least labor intensive way to do it and the leaves will add great compost to the soil. In the photos above you can see how the leaves are covering a larger area than just where the raspberries are at. This is because we will be creating another bed to plant strawberries and other edibles not yet determined. The 5×4 garden box behind the fence will house two blueberry plants and we will be adding 3 more boxes to the same area. Since we will be saving a lot of money by starting our own seeds and collecting offshoots from neighbors plants we will probably spring for larger 5 gallon size blueberry plants so we can get a small crop sooner.

When we add boxes or garden beds to our lawn we leave enough room to move around comfortably and get the lawn mower through. The last boxes we made were nice and hefty complete with gopher wire. Two boxes cost us approximately $100 in materials and 90% of it was reclaimed wood. This time we plan to make “recession boxes.” When Sammy completes them I will share the details of the material used.

The next action we will take in our transforming our lawn to food will be to add another 5×15 row to the garden and building 3-5 more garden boxes. We plan to add the 5×15 row first since all we need for that is compostable paper bags (i.e. grocery bags) and leaves. The cost for this will be $0. By the end of September I hope to report back with news of garden boxes.

What I am currently doing to transform the lawn to a garden

1. Collecting seeds in the garden from wildflowers sowed last year so I can plant more in the additional beds. Most wildflowers draw beneficial insects to the garden and they are an easy and no-fuss way to add color.

2. We try to spray the leaf piles once a day. Keeping the leaves moist will help them break down faster, giving us rich soil to plant in sooner.

3. We take note of friends and neighbors who have plants that can use dividing or thinning. We are set up to dig out some more nice raspberry stock when the weather is cooler and I collected some Columbine (aquilegia) seeds as just walking down the sidewalk. It was easy, just pinch the seed head right off, all you need is two or three.

Are you ready to transform?

Let us know if you have any questions and subscribe to our feed if you want to stay current on our garden plans. We would love to help with ideas and encourage you to get started on turning your lawn into a beautiful and highly functional area that can sustain you and your family. You can even send us a picture of the area you want to transform with your needs and limitations and we’ll post it to the site with some ideas you can consider.

Composting does not have to be difficult and you don’t need anything fancy to do it. You can leave your scraps in a pile and add dry lawn debris on to the top. You don’t even have to turn it. It will take much longer for the pile to turn to compost but it will eventually, probably within the year. So if you aren’t in a hurry for soil but you want to cut down on your garbage waste just start a compost pile. No big deal right?

If you aren’t into the look of a pile and just can’t seem to get over it then read about this inexpensive and homemade composter.

What I found were soldier fly larvae. The flies lay their eggs on top of the compost pile and the larvae feed on the nitrogen rich scraps that most kitchen compost has. The larvae helps break down the material into compost even faster than it would on it’s own so they aren’t a danger to the compost pile. The flies won’t invade your personal living space, just don’t keep the pile too close to your house.

The photo to the right is the picture of my compost pile with the larvae. The day I found them there were so many more soldier fly larvae and when I returned the next day to take a picture I could only find a few. I’m guessing the larvae traveled further down into the pile but I am hoping I didn’t disturb them too much.

There are some websites out there that explain how soldier fly larvae are used for bio-composting and vermicomposting. Some people are even calling soldier fly larvae ‘green technology.’ Sort of interesting that the best technology is the technology that humans didn’t invent.

Here is an article about soldier fly larvae and the compost pile from our very own University of Oregon

I stumbled across a compost blog and although the blog isn’t full of composting tips and facts, it did have some rather simple gardening techniques that were practical and down to earth. The homemade compost tumbler really caught my eye. I’ve yet to make one since I am just starting my compost pile here at this house. While my past attempts at composting have been unsuccessful, I am trying again and planning to put forth just a bit more effort.

One of the other good bits of information I found on this particular compost blog where the homemade compost tumbler was originally posted was that if you aren’t in a hurry for soil, just throw your green compost in a heap and alternate the layers with brown compost (i.e. leaves, dry grass, etc.) In a year or so you’ll have soil. It doesn’t have to be perfect…it just takes time if you don’t apply the science for speedy compost material. So for now I’ll just be the not-in-a-giant-hurry composter. I’ll be keeping an eye out for some garbage cans that I can turn into homemade compost tumblers and I’ll let you know how it works for me. If you get to it first be sure to let us know how it goes.