The Backyard
5 08 2010
Our yard has been a bit of a dilemma for us these past few years. Our land is 2.6 acres and mowing the whole thing was never an option although the first year we mowed about 2/3’s of it. This year we have reduced the amount we mow considerably. The reasons are many but primarily we want to spend less time mowing the lawn and less energy too. We recently purchased a reel mower and are attempting to go gas free with our lawn. It’s hard, but not as hard as you would think, and I rather enjoy the exercise. We sometimes revert back to the old ride on mower when the grass gets too high for the reel mower and the trails through the wild parts of the lawn are sometimes easier to cut on the ride on as well.
As the season passes and the meadow area of the lawn grows it is interesting and beautiful to see all the different kinds of plants growing in it. By far the most apparent plant right now is goldenrod, but there are others too, thistles, vetch, daisies, and some I don’t know.
Some people mow their entire lawns even with more land than us, I see them on Saturday afternoons riding their mowers on lawns it must take the whole day and more money in gas than I’d care to spend. They don’t get to enjoy the different plants and scenery afforded by a wild lawn.
We have some tame areas too of course, and a veggie garden that is producing! It feels good to be working with our land finally, and not just being tied down to “maintaining” it.
Peas, rhubarb and pumpkins around our teepee trellis, we thought they would climb up the the ropes but these peas stayed kind of short.
$10 Canadian Tire leftover garden center cherry tree, we bought two of these mistreated trees, hopefully they will perk up!
A red maple we planted the first year on the land, it got “girdled” by mice over the past winter. One of the reasons we decided to mow trails through the meadow areas was to keep the grass short around these trees. You can notice new growth coming up from the bottom of the tree so there is hope this tree will be reborn. Learning about trees in the past few years has taught me they are very very resilient.
A nice red oak and a view of the south west corner of my house. This red oak is my favourite tree on the property and I want to plant many more red oaks.
A zucchini plant in our vegetable garden, I ate this zucchini for lunch in a salad the next day at work made of spinach, zucchini, peas, lambsquarters, cherry tomatoes, green beans and parsley, all from our own earth!
Take a look at your own yard, are you using it for your own purposes? Or are you maintaining it to a standard you are expected to by your neighbours and society? We think we have struck a good balance between mowed lawn for playing on and wild meadow for habitat for wildlife, bees, etc… and garden space to provide us with food. And we are using as little gas as we can to do it!
