So the purpose of this post is to keep myself honest and on track. For a couple years now, I have said that I want to clear out this area along the back fence and plant blackberry, raspberry bushes, strawberries, and possibly 1 or 2 dwarf fruit trees. When we began to clear out some of the grass back in 2012, we thew a lot of the sod and its plastic mesh back along the fence. I wasn’t planning on leaving it there – the plan was to slowly put the pile into the city greens recycling bin. But I was 6-7 months pregnant at the time, so I never followed through … a couple years later, and I figure I better get started on that follow-through.
The area is roughly 4 feet deep and 23 feet wide. It runs along the back fence of my backyard and does not get any direct afternoon sun. Grass has overgrown the area (crabgrass – the bane of my existence), but actually, the soil underneath is fairly nice – it’s soft, healthy-looking, and there are plenty of pink worms! So my plan is to dig up all that grass and try to remove as many grass roots as possible. This will probably take a while given that I start a new semester next week, but I’m hoping to be able to post my progress on a regular basis. Wish me luck.
Here are two photos of what the area currently looks like. The part that I want to clear out is currently covered in green grass. The brown straw that you see is part of my winter composting/mulching project. I plan to plant my tomatoes in this brown straw area this spring.
According to Ai 