Front yard gardeners everywhere take note of this story!

I heard this on the national Canadian radio show, 'As it Happens' last night. The interview with Quan Ha in Orange County, California, who is being sued by the city for removing his grass.

"I guess there's a reason it's called "Orange County", and not "Green County" -- at least in an environmental sense. The famous, arid southern California district is suing a local couple because they removed their lawn and planted drought-resistant foliage. Which they did for environmental reasons -- to save hundreds of thousands of gallons of water they said was wasted in a vain effort to keep their grass green."

I think he should have put in lettuce.

Here is a link to the 7 minute interview:

http://www.cbc.ca/mrl3/8752/asithappens/aihstreaming_20100302_03.wma

(Sorry, but the link is to an annoying streaming wma audio file, so before you get to the story on the lawn you might have to sit through a few other stories. The first one might also be of interest: a story on how atrazine, which is put on corn crops, is contaminating water and is so powerful an endocrine disruptor, it changes the sex of frogs. But then you have to sit through a couple of pointless and boring Canadian political stories. Go get a cup of tea until the stream gets about 2/3 of the way through.)

I've found a nice improvement to sheet mulching that does involve a little digging but I think pays off in the end. (this method is for carving out a bed from a lawn area if you still want to leave some lawn intact.) I will hand dig the outline of the bed, digging down at least 12", and then cut that same outline again about 12" off-set into the bed. You can then roll out that strip of sod like carpet. I then lay cardboard/newspaper, soil and mulch down on the remaining turf. You will have a nice tidy edge, and can even leave it as a sort of trough, which can help prevent grass from creeping back into the beds. I've also used this trough method as a way to control slugs, if you keep the 1st foot of bed very very dry (especially if it's covered with a coarse mulch) slugs are discouraged from crawling into the beds.

I just did it the hard way. 500 square feet of lawn dug by hand. Waiting for things to dry out a bit more so I can shake a bunch of dirt out of each clod and then throw the remaining clod on a pile for composting. I don't look forward to the next 500 feet later this year.