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Growing Food Instead of a Lawn

By John Frasca

In early 2010, I went to a Transition Olympia meeting and was introduced to the permaculture concept of gardens that mirror the principles of ecology found in native forests. These are known as "Edible Forest Gardens". The speakers were Marisha Auerbach and Pat Rasmussen.

In May 2010, I took a class from Marisha. For this class we spent two days putting in an edible forest garden at a home near Boston Harbor Road. This is a great way to learn more about this natural way of gardening.

My home is on an urban lot on Quince Street in Olympia. The lot is 50 feet wide and 180 feet deep and it is on a hillside. The house sits at the very back of the lot on the high side of the hill, which is a challenge. There are nine steps up from the street and steps down from the back along the side of the house. Knowing that I would need at least 10 yards of wood chips for sheet mulch caused me to pause and wonder how I could get the wood chips and possibly some soil to the lawn. I continued to mow the lawn.

In 2011, I decided that I would try raised bed gardening. Garden Raised urban Bounty (GRuB) has a Kitchen Garden Project and a Giving Garden Project. I gave a donation to GRuB and the young people from GRuB built three raised beds for me. They brought the soil to fill the beds down from the alley behind my house. They beat the challenge of the hill. They did a great job and I have three raised beds near the house. I continued to mow the lawn.

In the spring of 2012, I finally decided it was time to take another look at converting my lawn to an edible forest garden. I contacted Pat Rasmussen. She told me it was do-able. She helped me decide what to plant and where to plant. I chose dwarf and semi dwarf varieties of apple, cherry, pear, fig, hazelnut and quince. We also planted hardy kiwi, blueberries, strawberries, aronia berries, red grapes, black currents and autumn olive. The autumn-olive is a good nitrogen fixer. Most of these plants came from Burnt Ridge Nursery. We also established two mushroom patches. These are the Hypsizygus ulmarius garden (HUG) mushrooms from Fungi Perfecti. These will benefit the other plants in the garden. I should also mention that I decided to remove a laurel hedge and a photinia hedge. These are being replaced with edible hedges of service berries and elderberries. I also plan to plant perennial greens such as good king henry and corn salad.

Pat and I chose a weekend in May to do the planting and sheet mulching. In permaculture, sheet mulching is an agricultural no-dig gardening technique that attempts to mimic natural forests' processes. Simply put, this is layers of cardboard covered by wood chips. Pat sent out e-mails to people that might be interested in learning about edible forest gardens through a hands-on experience. Thanks to Pat and the people who came, we accomplished most of the planting and sheet mulching in two days. I needed trellises for the kiwi, grapes and a wild rose that has been on the property for many years. Derick Rose built three beautiful trellises for me. He used locally milled cedar.

I am now looking forward to the harvest and sharing the bounty. Yes, my lawn is gone. I donated my mower to a worthy cause. You can do it too.

John Frasca recommends two books, Gaia's Garden by Toby Hemenway and Perennial Vegetables by Eric Toensmeier. Frasca was also glad to hear Marisha and Pat speak at the 2012 Northwest Permaculture Convergence, a three day event he attended at Fort Flagler State Park, on the first weekend in October 2012. Marisha Auerbach's web site is http://www.oly-wa.us/HerbnWisdom/ and Pat Rasmussen's website is http://edibleforestgardens.wordpress.com.


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