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.

Dawn

This morning I got up as the sun was rising. Unfortunately many photos I took were under exposed but it makes choosing easier.

Today I intend to dig up a large part of my berm. This part, and angle looks pretty nice. I have a few orphan plants that need a home, as well as a couple butterfly bush. I just need to make sure that people understand not to step on some of these plants.

Yarrow is fine with being walked on, as well as chamomile, if anything I should encourage people to walk on my chamomile to keep it in line. I will attempt as well to reduce the grass and various weeds, that is plants that I do not favor.

Maybe next year I will have less chamomile. I imagine that I will not need to propogate it any any manner anywhere next year. This spring, I actually transplanted a lot of seedlings all over. Behind the chamomile is one of my mint pots.

Here's Abe giving me a look. There's but a few sidewalk plants visible here. Honestly, I wish the crack were wider so I could plant something nice, like some thymes and other stepable groundcover plants.

I am very happy with how my porch is filling out. I don't think I need anymore plants up there, indeed, I have moved the pots surrounding my blue planter a couple inches away as the black and blue fills out.

So far, I have my vase offering, a lemongrass I rooted from an Asian grocery (Lotus, if anybody's wondering), a dracula dahlia, and my blue planter, at least that's all you can see. I think the black and blue will get at least twice as tall and much wider. I am waiting quite happily for that. There's also some cypress vine that is still quite small that should be pretty fun too. We'll see if it gets out of hand.