Back To Eden Garden Update

Well the yard (front and back) are looking spiffy, and the house is looking spiffier; it'll have to do.

We transplanted the rose bushes from out front in the BackToEden (BTE) garden plot to in front of the window facing the street. This is the area where I successfully grew Quinoa one year, before someone told the aphids where I live.

I ended up tearing out the remaining broccoli in the BTE front garden. I just couldn't save it, it was so badly infested with black aphids. In 2013, Mother Earth News wrote an article entitled "How to Kill Aphids Organically." I have not tried planting companion plants such as calendula, borage, zinnias, cosmos and nasturtiums. I guess it wouldn't hurt. If it doesn't succeed, I'm going to start using chemicals.

Aphids only attacked my broccoli crop (of course, since the seed harvest can be sold for $18-25 a pound!!) but I decided to start harvesting the celery now anyway. I'm just going to dehydrate it.

Anyway, back to BTE. You may recall I BTE'd with wood chips part of the back yard (had to dig it up thanks to LL), the front yard almost in entirety, and the window front and side planter areas, about two years ago. On the surface, it looks like the wood chips are still intact. Today while we were digging up the rose bushes we found out that the 4" of wood chips has decomposed down to a remaining inch or so of surface chips, leaving nice composted material. It sure looks nice. 

Oddly enough, the compost from my post yesterday, decomposed faster. When I originally got my wood chips, I transported them in black garbage bags. After using some of them, I had about 6 full bags left over. I left them in the bags. They decomposed into basically real "dirt" with very little "wood chip looking" material left, compared to the BTE front and back garden areas, which still look like "intact" wood chips.

Using the BTE method has absolutely cut down on the weeds. They are virtually non existent. Unfortunately, crab grass and St. Augustine grass LOVE BTE gardens. Granted, it's a smaller amount than before BTE, but I was really really hoping that crab grass would not grow in a BTE garden. It's pretty much invaded the back garden area, so I'm not too annoyed with having to dig that up and replace the garden patch with worthless grass: it's halfway there already.

I follow this guy on YouTube who has torn up his entire backyard and turned it into raised bed gardens. He did a couple of videos on planting potatoes and it looks like a good vegetable for the front yard BTE. I think I'm going to start some Sweet Potato slips too. 

Tired. We got a lot done in the past two weeks. I have great kids: they have worked like storm troopers.