Refining the Yard Plan
time to get cracking
When spring arrives in Maine you have about 10 minutes to get your act together before everything is covered in weeds. Fortunately, this is “no mow May”, so I still have about three weeks before I have to start feeling apologetic about the state of our yard. Unless, in the meantime, a neighbor chooses to point out that the tarp-covered woodpile, garbage cans and rusting bicycles aren’t food for pollinators.
At any rate, its time to refine the yard plan and start moving soil around, dismantling and cleaning up in preparation for planting. Varying zone calculators indicate either May 15th or June 1st as date of average last frost for our area. I think, looking at the weather, I could safely start planting now, but it might take me until June 1st to get things in order, particularly since I have decided to incorporate permaculture more deliberately into the plan, in the interest of completing a permaculture course that I purchased a few years ago.
To refresh my memory on the course work I’d already completed, I reviewed some of the material and found that the first steps for a permaculture design are basically the same as the ones I outlined in my original yard plan article: assess your resources, list your needs and wants, and pay attention to centers and flow (destinations and the paths taken to get to them).
Looking at my most recent plan, I felt that the centers and flow could use a bit more development.
In the plan from a month ago, I had approached things rather functionally: this should go here, that should go there. For yesterday’s plan, I thought and drew according to how we might be likely to move throughout the property, based on the destinations (back door to garden, paths around the perimeter for kids’ nerf battles, back door to chickens, etc.)
I also shifted my thinking away from planting primarily in garden beds, to a more permaculture-minded approach. In this case, this involves saving the garden beds for annual plants (most of the typical garden vegetables) and planting other areas with more edible shrubs, vines and fruit trees.
I also walked around the yard to spot things that were already in place, but not working well. I took a good look at the greenhouse (which I was planning to rebuild since the wire roof collapsed).
Most of the plants that I was trying to keep alive by housing them there in pots over the winter (a few lavenders and a tea plant) seemed to have died, I am guessing because the roots had frozen. It also contains a planting area for winter vegetables, but I am becoming increasingly uncomfortable with the idea of planting any vegetables there. Its proximity to the 100-year old house increases the likelihood of lead paint contamination, and I also found this weird cement thing in the nearby soil, which is lined with a strip of soft, bendable metal, which I think could also be lead:
So I have decided to dismantle the greenhouse and not replace it (for now, at least). In its place, I now plan to put in fruit trees and fruiting vines (tree fruits and berries apparently do not absorb lead from the soil as readily as vegetables). Additionally, it is a very wet area, so I am also considering elderberries, which I could use to make medicinal syrup.
I also looked around for assets, and found:
My seedlings are doing well. Once they began to gain size, I kept half of them on the windowsill and moved the rest outside to see which fared better. They both seem to be doing equally well (the outdoor seedlings are pictured in the last photo in the above group):
I am hoping that, by growing a smaller number of vegetables to a hearty size in pots, they might fare better once I plant them outdoors. I’ve found that I often have trouble with direct-sowing seeds outdoors. I find it difficult to differentiate seedlings from weeds when they are all the same size, and when they are small they are also more vulnerable to attackers such as cutworms.
Things that need to be built and dealt with ASAP include the garbage and bicycle shelters (I think I have come up with a good, simple plan) and the front porch, which needs new boards (and joists?). I would love to put in a low stone wall at the sidewalk edge of the property, as I think it would create a nice hang-out spot, especially when paired with a “free library” book box. The driveway needs to be resurfaced - probably this year. And the tiny pond that we dug and lined in the back yard should probably be expanded a bit, to house the fish that are currently in the greenhouse tub…
I am also hoping for flowers - many of them. Incorporating beauty is, I think, essential. After Maine winter and mud season, a bit of color would be nice.
