Lawn Bed, Swales and Raspberries

I have/had a  rough uneven and unattractive lawn full of tussocks and bare patches even though it had started off as rolled turf.  It desperately needed aerating, seeding and topdressing.  A couple of attempts at aerating solid clay saw me try something different.  I started throwing down potato peelings in a row along part of the lawn. I have had good luck with changing impenetrable dirt into soft soil using potatoes in other parts of the garden and figured that waiting a season to have soil I could work with, would be worth the wait.

The potatoes took and grew and grew. I started looking at the lawn as a potential vegetable bed. It is the only spot I get any sun on soil. The rest falls on the bitumen areas. Then my son kindly dug some swales for me above the rows of potatoes to halt the runoff of water down the slope.  These I dug deeper on my own and filled with what hand chopped twigs, leaves and straw mulch that I could within my own yard. More will have to be added. 


The potatoes kept growing and next thing I knew I was cardboard layering the grass between the rows and putting down compost and more straw. I have tried some seeds as well as plants but there isn't much happening at the moment. I don't expect to get back to doing the grass in this area and have plans for a corn patch there next year when the soil is softer and the grass dead.

The Lawn Bed Growing Potato Peelings

Swales are the slightly lower lines above potatoes.

Plenty of Straw for the little bird to throw around.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Support Stakes from Branches

1kg of Raspberries. Picking half this each day.

Yummy with Cream