less grass

After doing some reading on the subject, I've decided to take action to phase out our grass from parts of our yard over the next year or two. I've been composting like crazy to improve some of the worst parts of the yard, where I'll be sowing seeds for wildflowers that require only one to three hours of sunlight.

I'll be planting a few auxiliary vegetable gardens since the main one is too small to grow all the vegetables I would like to, adding another flower bed or two, planting an apple tree, and continuing to spread some moss around in other areas where the grass doesn't grow.

My wife doesn't especially care for grass lawns, but I guess that's understandable, since she grew up in Tucson, Ariz. I don't mind them, if they look nice. Our lawn looks nothing even close to "nice." Our soil would be described more accurately as "dirt." It's low in nutrients, and packed hard as a rock. What grass we do have generally is choked with weeds, and the lawn is mottled with bare patches where nothing grows because of a combination of the poor soil quality and the heavy shade we get from our neighbors' tall trees.

The end result, I hope, will be a yard of breathtaking beauty that attracts various bees and beneficial insects, hummingbirds and other birds, a few bats for insect control, and generally improves the quality of the little piece of God's creation I've been given responsibility for.