Tag Archives: lawn conversion

Grow Backyard Crops To Fund Home Improvements

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Courtesy of Wally S., Wally’s Urban Market Garden, Saskatoon SK

The advantage to backyard farming is that you can ramp it up or down, depending on your financial needs at any given time. If you  don’t use it to provide your full-time income, you can use it to fund a short term goal.

Say you are looking to put in a hot tub in a corner of your yard. You can apply your farming skill to grow a crop that will fund it.

SF photo theme garden squash 500 sf $500

Here’s that corner where the future hot tub will go. It’s about 500 square feet. That’s half a SPIN segment.

If you plant 20 to 30 squash plants in that sub-segment you can sell it to friends and neighbors or to another farmer who can sell it to their customers. A good type to grow in this context is Golden Nugget winter squash, which is a prolific bush type plant that doesn’t vine out like other squash, so it’s good for compact spaces.

SF photo fb Suqash GoldenNugget

FIND OUT ABOUT ALL THE OTHER CROPS THAT CAN EARN THEIR KEEP IN GARDEN SIZE PLOTS IN THE SPIN ONLINE SUPPORT GROUP. GET FREE TRIAL MEMBERSHIP WITH THE PURCHASE OF ANY SPIN GUIDE.

Raised Beds May Work Against You

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Courtesy of Roxanne C., Philadelphia, PA

When you get serious about production, the first thing to go are those raised beds. Recently SPIN farmer Rex Landings cleared out the last of his.

SF photo Raised beds Rex

When you turn a garden into a business, you start using time and labor saving tools the average gardener does not, like a tiller and a seeder. So you’ll need to consider how well they work with raised beds. They are expensive to build, cumbersome to work, not water efficient, and can dry out quickly in arid climates. They don’t work in every context, for instance, when you are renting a plot without a long term agreement.

Perhaps the biggest disadvantage is they are permanent. That means you can’t change your layout to grow crops that aren’t suitable for beds or put in very large scale plantings.

Raised beds can have their place, mostly for smaller-sized plots. Some advantages are they warm up earlier, and drain better during periods of heavy rain. The wood frames also can serve as anchors for row covers or low tunnels. But unless the soil you have is contaminated or your site has poor drainage, there’s no good reason to use them. They only limit your design options, and your thinking. If you don’t have to use them to solve problems, raised beds may actually create ones.

ARE RAISED BEDS RIGHT FOR YOU? PICK THE BRAINS OF SUCCESSFUL BACKYARD FARMERS IN THE ONLINE SUPPORT GROUP.  FREE TRIAL MEMBERSHIP COMES WITH THE PURCHASE OF THE SPIN GUIDES.

 

What is the Best Way to Prep Land?

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Courtesy of  Wally S., Wally’s Urban Market Garden, Saskatoon SK

Early springs around the US and Canada means discussions are heating up in the SPIN online support group on the best way to prep land. As with so many farming questions, the answer is, “It depends.” There is no right answer.

For instance, the best answer in this case is not necessarily the obvious one. A large multi-segment area in the country can be prepped with just a spade, growing on a staggered basis over time.

SF photo fb spade

A small backyard area can be put into play with a rototiller in a few minutes.

SF photo fb tiller

It all depends on the logistical and practical concerns a farmer is dealing with at any one time. So whenever the answer is “It depends”, that is not a cop out. It means whoever is answering the question operates in the real world and knows that the right answer is not a dictate, but a process.

FIND OUT OTHER LAND PREP FACTORS YOU SHOULD CONSIDER IN THE SPIN ONLINE SUPPORT GROUP. TRIAL MEMBERSHIP IS FREE WITH THE PURCHASE OF ANY SPIN GUIDE.

Location, Location, Location

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Courtesy of Wally S., Wally’s Urban Market Garden, Saskatoon SK

Farmers are defined by their location. Crops, growing practices, markets, pricing, all are place-based. Whatever success I have had, though, has come from not allowing myself to be limited by the usual constraints. Take my land base, for instance.

I first started on 20 acres in the country. When I could not make the business work, I downsized to less than an acre using multiple urban backyards, including my own.

DDG3 photo 13

My urban backyard plots have numbered up to 25 and collectively have never totaled more than 2/3 of an acre. Over the years the yards I have farmed have come and gone. I gave up some when they were sold because I did not want to have to deal with new owners. Others proved to be too small. Not having to make a long-term commitment to any of them gave me time to figure out what was optimal.

That’s what led me to take on a few peri-urban sites about 25 miles from my urban backyard.

DDG4 photo 7

I’ve also picked up some properties in a small rural town a few years back because the price was right.

DDG3 photo 6

So right now my farm looks like this:

Urban: (my backyard plot and home base; includes a small plastic unheated greenhouse and indoor grow room)                                                                                                     1,000 sq. ft.  

Peri-urban site: (2 plots owned by others)                                                                     20,000 sq. ft.

Rural: (plot owned by me)                                                                                             15,000 sq. ft.

Growing at these broad range of locations simultaneously gives me a full site line of the trade-offs of each. In general, I see now I paid too much money in rent over the years. If I were ever to ramp up my urban production again, I would find owners who recognized the value of what amounts to my providing property maintenance who would not charge me rent. The plot would have to be sizable and in close proximity to my home base to make it worth my while now.

If you want to lump me into the hot new trend of urban farming, you won’t be wrong. Or if you think I belong to the agriburbia or back to land movements, that’s true enough too. I don’t like to be typecast, so I just call myself a SPIN farmer and leave it at that.

Converting Lawn to Cropland

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Courtesy of Bingo B. Boise, ID 

Depending upon what kind of grass you have, grass can regrow itself from the live roots. Some grass varieties are more invasive than others. So just rototilling it under can actually create more grass plants in your lawn than before. Converting an existing lawn is hard work. It can be expensive too. I’ve done all of these at one point or another.

1. Rent a sod cutter and cut out the grass. Rototill after you remove the sod. Use the pieces of sod to create berms or earthen raised areas. On one garden I put an ad on craigslist and people came by and picked up the sod. On another I created a circular bench out of the sod pieces using them like bricks. The plan this year (now that all the grass is basically dead on those sod pieces) is to encase it in real bricks with a flagstone top to create a bench-like wishing well feature.
2. Hand dig out the sod. The easiest (actually it is all hard) way is with a pick using the flat side to cut up under the sod. (See #1 with what to do with the sod.) Or, you can use a flat edge shovel and cut out square pieces. Make sure you get down about 3-4″ (look to see how deep the thickest grass roots go.
3. Double dig and put the grass/sod/root piece really really deep. I’ve tried this way and still have a grass problem.
4. The “lasagna method”. Do a search in the SPIN Online Support group discussions for details or google it.
5. Solarize using clear plastic(not black). This will take about 90 days of your hottest weather and usually an entire season. You want the grass to have a nice warm environment to grow, like a greenhouse. Then when it gets really hot under there with no water they all die. It even does a good job on weed seeds too. This may take longer than you want.
6. Chemical Herbicide—uck. Not recommended.
7. Make raised beds on top of your sod with a really thick layer of cardboard or newspaper between the sod layer and your soil. You have to bring in all new soil for this one and it can be costly.