We've talked about it for a while, but we are finally doing it! YES! We are breaking up a 20 x 20 feet area of concrete to make more veggie beds! We hired our gardener and he gladly broke up the "urbanite" and hauled it away. My husband insisted he can do all that, but seriously, at what cost/time? He works full-time, so it would only be done during the weekend, plus he's a tie-wearing mouse-pusher. Not really the physical type to be bustin' up concrete. I told him he has lots of wood working projects backed up anyhow.
There was stil a lot of gravel and sand under the concrete, so we had to have all that hauled away too... cost more for that
finally we see some real dirt! This soil hasn't seen the sun since the house was built in 1954! Before the concrete, there was asphalt on this area. We know this, because our family bought this house back in 1986, and it was a asphalt driveway until we had it repaved in the mid 90's.
We plan on letting the soil sit a while with some compost on top, let the wormies do their thing, then plant some native wild flowers, so their roots can penetrate the tough soil. Then, after that we plan on planting corn. The Corn plants' roots host microbes that break up toxic chemicals from asphalt. So does Sunflowers and crabgrass, but our son is severely allergic to Sunflower seeds, and letting crabgrass go rampant just doesn't sound pleasant to an urban homestead that's seeking to look "pretty" but productive. We'll have to find some local folks that are looking to get rid of their topsoil and bring some here. the soil level here is about 4" less that the rest of the garden.
The rains caused a mini lake. I foresee some drainage issues... But I'm excited! We added some grass clippings from the neighborhood lawns to get the composting going and hopefully some natural softening of the soil by our friendly earthworms. (note the small tree in a 15 gal pot. This is the dwarf, grafted, 3 variety asian pear tree that went to a new home. We simply didn't have enough room for this one, even though we brought it with us from the other house. It went to a good home, and we got to trade it for credit on organic supplements!) See our doggy Happy too, the new space is pretty big in contrast to him!
If you want to see this area BEFORE it was broken up, you can check it out
here and also
here:
