By Devon Brugh
My husband and I were ecstatic when we found our new home, but not for what most people think. Yes, the spacious house, a good school system and walking distance to a local food store were good selling points. We fell in love with the half acre fenced in yard in the back. A majority of the back yard is filled with various trees, including one Cherry tree; but the area in the very far back was in view of full sun all day. Both of our families were products of the depression. We had both been taught at a very young age a garden and freezer/home canned foods were a poor man’s bank account. As we stood in the back yard images of a bountiful garden began to create as we discussed the varieties of vegetables each of our families had taught us to grow. What we didn’t expect was what we found when we removed the grass.
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There are many important things to consider when starting a garden. Amount of sun, placement of vegetables, and most importantly is the soil. Soil is what supplies water and nutrients to the growing plants. It is a combination of items from decaying matter, bacteria and organisms converting chemicals in the ground into usable nutrients for the root systems (Lappe, 2010, p. 15). From past experiences I had seen and worked with the soil in my grandparents’ garden. It was always dark, and crumbly, and in the spring after a rain almost had a sweet smell. What we found was almost the exact opposite. The ground was dry, pale brown, no signs of organisms like worms were found. Instead we found broken glass, beer bottles, rocks, old silverware and various other forms of trash. Our neighbors informed us later; where we had decided to plant our new garden use to be an in ground pool now filled in with landfill and when we removed the grass all the usable soil went along with it leaving us an empty shell of dirt.
The lack of soil quality was just a minor setback. We knew we could fix the issue it would just take some time. The back yard, in its own way, was going to help us return this area to the once usable soil. With a little research (Mother Earth News has some great articles) we came up with a plan between compost and animal manure and later crop rotation to rebuild the soil.
Lappe, A. (2010). The Climate Crisis at the End of Our Fork. New York: Bloomsbury USA.
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