Two articles on this page:
1. A Vacant Lot turned into a Garden of De-Light
2. Being Creative with The Low Work Gardening Method

The black plastic mulch is just fantastic as long as all other requirements of a garden are met- mainly good soil and sufficient sun.

When I first came back to this area I lived adjacent to a vacant lot in town where a large store had burnt down many years before. That was our yard for the house didn't burn and was turned into apartments.

It was covered with garbage and only a small area at the back of the house was mowed. There were rocks from an old stone wall and weeds and brush at the back and bits of the foundation sticking up here and there and a cement encased hole there for some reason.

I cleaned it up, fixed up the fences and cut some brush and started on a garden.

This lot fronted on to the main street of Perth. I was very sick after a long run on drugs and alcohol (many years) and numerous medical problems. I started out digging ten minutes a day and worked up to more day by day.

People would walk by and I could see the big question mark on their faces. It wasn't necessary to dig but it was therapy. I only had a shovel and a rake and my chopper (a carpenters adze I use) There was even a big sheet of black plastic that was very heavy almost like rubber and an old green plastic tarp. People would often ask me what I was doing or come over to see what I was doing in this dump.

I found a lot of interesting stuff digging for before it was a blacksmiths shop and of course a lot of metal rubble from the fire. Old metal parts from horse harnesses and horse shoes were the most common. I found a hub cap off a Model T or A, a round brass ball that I still don't know what it is and many unknown metal objects.

I grew the most wondrous food and sunflowers lining the fence along the sidewalk with Scarlet Runner Beans and Morning glories mixed in and more flowers around the side and back and little patches of flowers here and there and rocks. Rock sculptures and designs with rocks as borders etc. In the back and to one side were my veggie gardens. It took me months and I needed months. I carried water in buckets and I acquired an old lawn mower and there were patches of Day Lilies and Irises that had just grown by themselves.

People weren't laughing anymore but still questioning if I could grow veggies there. It wasn't long before I had a table out by the street and my extra veggies made me some money every day. I had a large pickle jar there and folks just dropped the money in even when I wasn't there.

Many people walked by the garden and oh, I had a big wind sock in the centre of it which I made myself, and often I would give a flower or two to the ladies walking by to cheer them up.

I rode a bike around town and I started to notice more rocks and more little dumpy areas being cleaned up and planted with flowers. Benny K's garden as it was known, for that had been the name of the owners store, helped with my healing and I think with others too. Not just the beauty of it but also the idea of what one can do if they put their mind, heart and back to it.

Benny K's vacant dump was a canvas in disguise, and me, the "painter" got to eat a lot of good healing food and to sit in my hidden little "fort" in the bushes in the back and watch folks going by enjoying it and dropping a few coins in my pickle jar.

As I've said, and others too, "Gardenin' nourishes you twice- once in the growin' and agin in the eatin"...... but in this case I got nourished many times....... hehe, and I don't even have a picture.

Without the black plastic mulch and green tarp and some garbage bags I never would have been able to keep up with all the weeding and watering. That vacant lot was about 100 ft wide by about 150 ft deep and maybe a quarter of it was veggie and flower gardens and the rest mowed.

A few years back I rode by on my bike and along with the Day Lilies and Irises there was a patch of a striking orange of Poppies. I have to visit this spring and transplant a few of each out here and see what else is growing there.

You can be really creative and make different shaped beds of flowers and veggies and leave enough room to get a lawnmower between the beds and simply mow the grass in the paths blowing the clippings onto the plastic eventually covering the plastic and adding other materials or dirt onto it as well.

Celtic designs, geometric designs or even a maze or labrynth can be laid out or whatever you fancy. Draw it first on a piece of graph paper being sure the paths are the width of the lawnmower cut so you only have to cut the lawn on the paths once, but they can be made wider but not narrower.

After soaking and preparing the area as I have written in the previous article, lay the plastic down and after a few weeks when the lawn has laid down then you can lay out your design using string and long nails driven into the ground and cut the plastic alongside the strings, weighing down the edges of the plastic with sod of dirt. Be sure that it is level and do Not use raised beds (the growing area) or you will have problems cutting the paths with the lawnmower. The dirt or sod on the edges of the plastic soon becomes flattened by the wheels of the lawnmower.

Then the fun begins whether it's flowers or veggies or a combination for you get to design the colour pattern of your design. Perennials are so wonderful for a flower garden as once it is done it requires no more planting..... and they multiply so you have plants to put elsewhere, or to give away or to sell as cut flowers or potted plants and as a bonus you get the seeds and some flowers are edible.

Think about the height of the plants with the tallest plants going into the centre or at the back of your design if it's against the wall and then tapering to smaller plants.

Think about perenial veggies and fruit bushes etc and you will have food every year without any planting and perenial veggie plants to share or sell or transplant. With perennials you will need to do some side dressing with compost or fertilizer. Simply lift up the plastic beside the plants and top dress-- the rain will wash it in. ...... and enjoy and so will your neighbours and friends and those that get to eat the food.

One of my plans (some-a-day) is to make a large corn or sunflower maze (an a-amaze-ing maise) about a half acre of more in size and charge admission (a small fee) and I get to sell the corn or sunflower heads.

I saw an article about a guy who did this in the U.S. and he did one that was about an acre and he was charging folks 9 dollars (American) a head, to walk through it. Yikes, I wouldn't charge a quarter of that and I've had this idea for about 20 years so maybe it's time I got on with it.

One thing about gardening it's not about the money but money can be made with it for the price of organic veggies are just out of reach for most folks. It costs less to grow organic so it's really a rip off-- one of those supply and demand thingies. Short supply big demand! = high prices.

Hey, Good Gardening and may both your thumbs turn a beauty-full green. There's only one thing almost as good as gardenin' and thats writing about it.

There's Tulips under the snow...

Feel free to email me if you have any questions or improvements on this method.