This is a long shot, but I made friends with my neighbor, who owned a house with a yard, and he was very much in favor of turning the (mostly dirt) lawn into a garden. We've acquired a lot of soil and cinderblocks on our local Everything is Free page, which we plan to use for a terraced little garden of native flowering plants. We got a bit delayed by life stuff and because I was waiting to see if someone would offer up a pile of pavers (as soon as I buy some I just know someone will) but we'll get back to it soon. We've got a peach tree to plant and I'm researching to see if I can find a used solar panel somewhere to drive a small water feature.
this post was submitted on 08 Aug 2023
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No Lawns
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We're in the middle of a heatwave going on over a month here and I have been trying to seed some clover in patchy spots in the lawn and as a living mulch for a few of my garden beds and it has been pretty shitty trying to keep the soil moist to sprout seeds. I would definitely recommend waiting until it has cooled off and there is regular rain maybe? IDK I don't have a green thumb
What kind of seeds? If it's nothing invasive you could always go guerilla gardening.
Different cases, like I might see a seed pod from something going to seed and think there are various blank patches of ground around that could use a little life and feed a pollinator. Or once or twice I’ve seen very old vegetable seed packets languish in Little Free Libraries and wondered whether they might be at least given a chance out in the world somewhere. Or fruit fallen from trees or seeds or pits from ones I’ve eaten that could take their place out there.
But I don’t have experience, and would have to wing it based mostly on how hospitable somewhere looks for wet/dryness.
(With it of course being understood that if you put it in someone’s yard, they will be pissed at you, and if you put something not from here that wants to take over, it will take over and that’s not for the best.)
You could always get some cloth sacks and grow them in that on top of whatever surface is available. A DIY greenhouse is an option.
Or like you said just plant them in blank patches. As long as it's not invasive and not a vine type plant, throw em wherever!
I usually sprinkle my leftover grain mix' in my town wastelands but I don't look for mesurable result.
I do it when I go for a walk, where I walk and I see that nature is a bit wild. Like in the places that have a bit of wild herbs not cut or remove. I don't care much about the time of the year best to the plant either.
This way, I usually see some flowers from flower mix' the next year. And once I had a few tomato grains that I sprinkle on top of some dried sewer mud and I had actual tomato fruits on it almost every year until the wasteland was repurpose.
Nature does not need much human intervention to grow. But I'm sure that with more care, I could get some better result.
I don't wait for rain, but when I see there's going to be a few days of rain, I try to get some seeds out there before it rains. A few days of rain might give the seeds a good start, and then, you could mulch the seedlings to help them make it to the next rainfall. You could use a handheld tool to cut competing plants like grass and use them as mulch. If you can spend a little time every day or week, then you'll figure out what works.