Cyprus Mail
Fashion

Food gardening: how to turn your lawn into lunch

You can grow food just about anywhere. You can grow it in a courtyard, you can grow it on a balcony in some pots, and, of course, you can grow it on your lawn!

In this video, we meet Millie Ross, whose whole garden, only a few years ago, was a grassed area. But while she loves a spot of lawn and backyard cricket, she loves growing food, too, so here, she elaborates on how to convert a patch of lawn into lunch.

You can dig up your lawn, but it’s hard work and you lose the topsoil in the process – which is the best growing resource a garden has. Millie has been smothering the grass in one patch of lawn with sheets of tin, but you can use a tarpaulin or cardboard, too. Tin also cooks the grass, which helps with tough grasses like couch.

Millie aerates the ground with a fork and then works through the area to remove any grass runners that are still alive – they are especially found at the edges, where they hit barriers.

Next, to bring some life back to the baked soil, Millie adds organic matter – composted horse manure or compost. She adds a path of wood chips along the edge to access the bed without walking on it.

When planting out, she chooses a fast-turnaround crop to go in first, because there is always the risk there will be some grass runners left that will regrow; a long-term crop will give any leftover grass time to reestablish, which you want to avoid.

Instead, Millie plants out a series of fast-growing crops: peas, turnips, mustard, rocket, silverbeet, plus radish… a welcome and nutritious addition to daily meals.

View the original video here.

Good Living is the Cyprus Mail’s portal of curated content from across the internet, showcasing local and global ideas, cultural highlights, and scientific and technological developments to inspire a sustainable life.

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