We Bought a Book and Now We're Farmers

After the dustbowl fiasco, we spoke briefly with our landscaper who wasn't really on board with supplying us with a new supply of buffalo grass seed. His recalcitrance lead us to abandon our reliance on corporate landscapers (that's an exaggeration) and try things on our own. We've always had that do-it-yourself spirit so we bought some books on urban farming.

The first book my wife purchased was Gaia's Garden "A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture."

Whatever that means.

What we found out is that if you want to do a broad scale landscaping plan that is responsible and really utilizes the land in an urban setting, you have to do a lot of planning...which I hate. I like to go down to the nursery, buy up the most exotic thing I can find, plant it in my yard and hope for the best. Apparently this isn't encouraged by people "in the know."

What you have to do is observe how the sun, wind, bugs, etc. interact with your home and yard. Then you have to plant the stuff that will maximize the value of the land in terms of production, water use, etc. Geez.

I had hoped to maybe landscape the whole yard in a few weekends but that's not a good idea or something. My wife learned from her book that the best time to really plant stuff is the fall, so that's our goal. Of course, in the meantime we have this whole dirt farm problem in the front yard. Every time it rains we lose soil into the street. We needed a stopgap measure.

According to the book, look to annual cover crops.