Curb Cabbage

I finally finished cleaning up my curb, and my neighbors rejoiced. Overall, they like what I am doing but yesterday some neighbors that had never spoken to me before did, and they were kind words.

You see, I am one of those people that sees grass as a desert, who thinks that mowing a lawn is a waste of time and fossil fuels, though my mower is hand pushed. I resolved this year to leave it in the basement. I only needed to pull up the rest of the grass and let the good plants take over. But I procrastinated. I have a coffee mug that says

"Procrastinators of the world unite and fight...
tomorrow"

and it suits me perfectly. So there it is, my curb with my fine cabbage in the middle of my labor.

And after.

I left a few plants I like there. I chose to divide the yarrow that had been growing quite well before I moved in all over my berm. Yarrow is a native plant that is excellent for xeriscaping. Yarrow also has a very long history of medicinal use all over the world. It was even used in divining the I Ching.

Anyway, this ended up being much more work than I like. I pretty much dug up EVERYTHING, including the cabbage to more effectively remove all plants in my disfavor. I also removed a lot of dirt. I think I took away several cubic feet which I dumped in back. I wanted the soil line to be lower than the curb and sidewalk so that perhaps I will have less plants growing in the street and that perhaps when it rains the water will collect in the soil rather than just washing away. I amended the remaining soil with some gypsum, greensand, and compost in all of it. Most was on top of a hardpan clay but some was on top of decaying concrete. I added a bit of lime to the clay parts. I also buried some bokashi below part of it. Another part has cat turds from bad kitties that keep pooping below some hedges that are not part of the veggie area and part has no additional fertilizer. I wonder how differently each part will grow.

I am sure I will still need to weed it, indeed, it still looks a little sloppy, but it is much better and hopefully will be less work. As you can see I replanted the cabbage. It has received a lot of admiration.