~SUSTAINABLE LIVING FOR CHALLENGING TIMES

[excel]

I have no idea why people need all that grass in their yards once the kids are grown?

That is space that could be growing food with grass in between the raised rows of dirt.

That is what I decided to do with my front yard.
If you go through life worried about what the neighbors think you'll never be free.

OK, here you go. Has been a long process due to weather.
Nasty cold wet spring stopped my neighbors tractor from working. I had fill dirt brought in placed over the current grass to get rid of some hills. You can see part of one lawn left where the septic field is. To the right is right after delivering my second load of free straw I got off craigslist. This will be used to build my raised beds. They are almost two feet high when done.
I'll be mixing straw, wood chips, horse and chicken manure, plus kitchen compost to make soil.






This is start of my first row. I will plant grass between rows.
You can see the first layer of straw and next one of wood chips almost complete. After that layer was done I put about 10 inches of cut grass on it.






After raking rocks out of that area for first bed it was very satisfying to get the process of arranging nature to make dirt. going to rake up and prepare a section at a time.

Will that excitement was soon shattered when I took a break to walk over and discover this in my garden............



These were 5 foot raspberry plants. We have lived here for 18 years and never had a deer jump our garden fence. We knew it was a possibility but with so much food every where for them there was no need to. This was devastating to see. I missed this years crop of raspberries due to an under ground springs that go into a culvert backed up and flooded my garden out I thought I was going to lose all my berries as the leaves went bad from the plants standing in water. But I thought oh well I'm not ready to start new anyways might as well leave them alone and see if they come back. Will they did and was very happy. Now it will be one more expense adding another fence to this area. I will be fencing the entire front as the deer already wiped out my blueberries.

I'm very blessed because a farmer I know I'm going to trade some work and she is going to have couple truck loads of manure sent up here. Some is years old so it's just unbelievably great dirt.

This will save me from using my other van going to get load after load. God is GOOD!