This morning, on our way home from our “catch the cool while we can” visit to the playground at our neighborhood park, Ellie found a gigantic stick to bring home. At first I said “no” because, really, what’s the point? Then, realizing that I should save my negative replies for important things, I told her that she could bring it as long as she didn’t ask me to pull it for her. To her credit, she pulled it the whole way home and never complained, even when climbing up the steep hill just before our house!
Here she is, telling you about it in her own words:
It’s tricky to hold up such a long stick!
Bonus Feature: 
(In the foreground, that’s an apple tree in desperate need of some pruning. It nicely escapes all the shade from the other trees! We planted it and its neighbor this spring – a Fuji and a Macintosh.)
Here’s our front yard, which has turned into a forest. We planted the red bud (middle) and the maple (right) in April 2008 and they’ve just gotten big enough that they touch each other. Add in the old dogwood touching the red bud and we have a veritable forest growing. Our front yard always has lovely shade now. I’m scheming about ripping up our whole front lawn and planting an edible forest permaculture. That, however, would take far more time than I have right now. Although this book’s promise of low maintenance sounds intriguing, it’s more the initial setup work (i.e. ripping up lawn, building beds) that I can’t see finding time for right now. Maybe in a few years?
Salmon and Souvlaki 
Hi, my kind of gardening really does not take a lot of time. I either plant in to existing flower and shrub beds or if I make a new bed and take up some lawn I turn the turf upside down and plant / sow directly into the underside. I don’t dig, hardly need to weed or do other maintenance tasks associated with more conventional gardening. The book explains the whys and wherefores, but I have been doing this for years now and am convinced that the yields are very good for the small amount of work entailed.
I love your blog and all the details about how and why you are living as you do.
Anni – I’m honored to have a book author visit my blog! I haven’t read your book yet but the Baltimore County Library has it now so I’m planning to read it soon. The particular lawn where I’d like to do this has some really vicious spreading grass in it. I don’t know that just turning the sod upside down would kill it off. I did a complete removal of the same kind of grass (i.e. dug out the sod entirely) in another bed and I still have to battle it to keep it from taking over. So I think I’ll have to remove it completely and that’s what I’m not looking forward to.
Anyway, thanks for your comment and your visit to my blog! I’ll be reading your blog to learn more, too!
Good luck with the lawn. I have found that lawn grass does tend to sprout round the edges of the turfs I have taken up and overturned. For me just pulling that off / out when I see it is less trouble than other ways of doing things. But I do hate taking lawn up in the first place, it is hard work.
I’m thrilled to hear my book is in your library. Hope you enjoy reading it and find it helpful, do send an email to me at annisveggies at hotmail dot co dot uk if you have any questions. I’m always happy to help, I may have written a book, but I’m the same as everyone else who cares about the planet – just want to do my bit! Anni
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