Ars Terra Homestead, August 2008...

The backyard of the house was our very first project; we began in the Summer of 2006 after completing our certification in Permaculture at The Farm in Tennessee...

Backyard Garden Plan - 2007

The backyard of the house was our very first project; we began in the Summer of 2006 after completing our certification in Permaculture at The Farm in Tennessee. We decided to create a natural Organic Garden with raised beds, keyholes and paths on a lawn of Bermuda grass, at the same time keeping the house canines out, while maintaining easy access from the kitchen for herbs and vegetables. It is a constantly evolving work in progress.

Here are photos of the Backyard as it changed to Garden:

2005: View from side, the far end with shed is the site we have chosen. You can see the straight brick edging that follows the back wall.		2006: The future garden site, with only lawn and dirt, along with a few rose bushes and shrubs we have decided to keep. Our 3-legged dog, Fozzie, is enjoying the lawn.		Inside the site, with the fencing we placed before we began to map out the garden beds.

Original map of the area and the garden plan. We spent months observing the Sun and Wind before planting, to get to know what plants were best suited in which areas. Areas of full Sun for more than 8 hours during the Summer will not be good for lettuces, and areas of all day shade won't be great for tomatoes...

This is the simple plan of what we had.		The future garden plan, keeping the lines of the garden beds natural, and removing all of the straight brick trimming. Keyholes are entrances into round beds so one can reach all areas of the garden, at the same creating more natural edging.

Once the conceptual design was complete, we set about outlining the future beds with the brick we began to pull up from the front of the house, and pulling up old brick trim. From there, our first task was to build soil, so we opted for raised beds.

From paper to practical, the design begins to take shape. In the future walkways, we began to cover the lawn with carpet, so we could stop the grass from moving its tenacious roots into the garden beds.		The removal of straight brick trim to build up the future garden edges.
Sheet mulching. With our work with farm animals, we are lucky to have endless access to straw with sheep and chicken manure, which we put directly on the lawn, then covered with cardboard and newspaper, then a layer of compost, grass or leaf clippings and straw.		A fully-mulched bed, with brick trim and then reclaimed concrete as the top of the new garden beds.
An Herb Spiral. We originally used bottles for the spiral part, though we learned during the first Summer that they splayed out a bit much as the plants pushed outward.		Fully-mulched beds, with rose bushes pruned back for the Winter. Across the walkway, an outlined lawn bed still waits. This project took some weeks to finish -- one thing we have earned is patience!

Start to Finish:

This is the freshly composted center bed, seeded for the first time. We had to re-seed twice more and add wind breaks with bottles, branches and rocks due to high winds that scattered the seed.		the result: a wonderful mix of vegetables and cover crop. Cover crop such as clover and sweet pea help build the soil and crowd out the bermuda grass, though we fought it all Summer long. We now know it takes 2 years to truly kill off a typical suburban lawn.

Before and After:

Photos from Summer, 2006 and Summer, 2007.
Photos from November, 2006 and July, 2007.
Here is our dog, Sugar, at the newly placed fence as we outlined the garden beds, and during the Summer, trying to peer over the Yellow Squash into the garden!
A shot of the garden in it's earliest stages, and then in full swing.

This Organic Garden yielded tomatoes, zucchini, amaranth, melons, squashes, lettuces of all kinds,
corn, herbs, grapes, berries, beans and beautiful flowers, and much more...

Wildlife, where there had been none, is now abundant in the garden -
including bees, butterflies, hoverflies, hummingbirds, lizards, frogs and worms by the handful!