Here’s how:

When we first started, here is what we were dealing with:

Now Bermuda grass is notorious for being one of the most hardy grasses, which you are pretty much stuck with it unless one is willing to go to EXTREME measures (along the lines  drenching it in gasoline and setting it ablaze). However, we were feeling up for a challenge =). *I will caution that this method does use chemicals, which did not make my wife happy, but we were warned that the alternatives were seriously labor intensive.

Here are the tools/equipment needed:

- Backpack sprayer:

-Round Up: 3 spray sessions over a 3 week period. Helpful tip: Put in some blue dye so that you can see what areas are being covered as you spray

- Sod Cutter set at the lowest depth. I went to our local Cresco to get one like this:

Here is an in progress shot of using the sod cutter. Warning this is back breaking work:

*Note that the Round Up has already taken effect.

- A large haul away dumpster – Careful, they charge by the pound and sod is HEAVY, therefore you can only fill up like a third of the dumpster

- A large tiller once the sod is removed you have to go down about 6-10 inches to get down to the roots or stolons.

- 2 dump trucks worth of compost to till into the dirt underneath the Bermuda sod – Here is an in-progress shot:

- A Chiropractor – Did I mention that it’s back breaking work…

- After about 3 months, we finally got rid of our Bermuda grass. Our intent was to replace it with something super low maintenance and less of a water hog. What could be lower maintenance than “No-Mow” fescue:

We have received multiple compliments since we finished this project and thinking back when we decided to do this project, I’m glad we did as I have not had to mow the lawn since =) This project is a 9 out of 10 in terms of how difficult it is, but the payoff is oh so sweet!

Happy gardening!

We have a total of 5 raised beds in our back yard:

- 1 long bed

- 4 smaller beds

Here is glimpse of 3 from back in April:

In the foreground, is our long bed with lettuce, bright lights kale, and shallots. In the background my wife is getting one of the smaller beds ready for some tomatoes. The smaller bed on the left had some brussels sprouts–which we have NEVER had any success with–and more kale. The 2 other beds were planted with strawberries, kale, and chard (but also ended up with sunflower and tomato volunteers–the result of poorly cooked compost).

For those wondering, we are in Zone 9b and get our fair share of smoking hot days, which our tomatoes love! Here is a quick shot of a few tomato plant that we planted this season:

So far I would rate our summer season a C+, and here’s why:

- We did not plan ahead of time and consciously decide what to plant and where (instead we bought whatever looked interesting at the DVC plant sale & planted it where there was space)

- We have been distracted by the various front yard projects and have not been doing much maintenance or pest control

As we hit the heart of tomato season, the garden is producing, but not as well as last year. Next year, we will be better prepared =) Hopefully I’ll be able to stay on top of this california garden blog and will make it a point to post more frequently!

When we started, it looked like this:

Pretty plain, right? That is partly why we chose this house. It was basically a blank canvas, without much (good or bad) added to it over the 60 years it has been around.

As usual, I had help from my father-in-law with equipment and design (largely to ease my wife’s fear I would somehow screw it up). Split rail fences are easy to install, but are designed for right-angle corners, which isn’t what I had in mind.

Here are the materials and equipment that we used:

- 16 5ft. posts (2 end posts)

- 32 8ft. split rails (1 extra just in case and 1 used for the new mail box)

- Post holer

- 18 bags of fence post cement

- Sawzall – Indispensable in all these projects really…

- Smaller hand saw to clean out the holes in the post

- 4 ft level

- 3 inch wood scews

Here is an in-progress shot:

This was shot after we finished digging all of the post holes. (You will likely notice that there is no longer any grass, but that is another post entirely.) We had to dig down about 2 feet to be within the city’s 3-foot height requirement. You may also notice the tree roots, these made digging a couple of the holes a pretty major, and time consuming, pain. 

After about 6 hours here is what it looked like:

We added the new mail box post last minute, and it turned out better than expected! All in all, I think the project was a success. On the 1-10 scale for how hard this would be to do it yourself, with 1 being “so easy your grandmother could do it” and 10 being “hire some one else” -  I would put it at a 3. The hardest part was digging the holes and working around the tree roots.

4/23/11: grey cat running SE across front yard towards orange tree. 7:42 pm.

4/24/11: We ALREADY have a picture! Grey cat sitting eerily in neighbor’s yard. Dared to take a picture and found that it was, in fact, possessed. 7:57 pm. (btw, like the new fence segment?)

5/14: grey cat running NW across (now dead) lawn and darting under neighbor’s volvo. 8:12 pm.

I won’t comment on his breed. Your guess is as good as ours.

Needless to say, we wanted to let our little guy roam the backyard without being able to chase those neighborhood cats all the way back to their own yards. Here is a before shot of the backyard fence (actually, this is after I removed most of it, the section at the far left gives an idea of what we started with – although it is in better shape than the rest was):

After several trips to Home Depot, removal of the existing trees (this step deserves its own post), and with the expert installation from my father-in-law, we ended up with this:

Sure enough, our little guy was super happy with the result as you can see:

If I were to put a rating from 1-10 on how hard this would be to do it your self, with 1 being “so easy your grandmother could do it” and 10 being “hire some one else”, I would put it at a 9. I think for all the project based gardening projects I’ll be sure to use this same scale =). All in all, it was a great success. Happy gardening!

Here is what our tomatoes looked like last week – after we had pulled out about half of them, but before 30-degree nights invaded:

One week later, and they looked like wet noodles:

And, now they are all pulled out. 

At any rate, we had an amazing season! Of the many different varieties we tried, the sungolds, yellow brandywines and better boys were the winners based on taste and texture. We will be sure to list all the varieties next season and which ones outperform. With that, we close out our tomato season. I’ll just have to find comfort in knowing that based on the last pickings we have another 30-40 green tomatoes ripening as I type =)

On a separate note, I have recently been checking out all the different California garden blogs and find that not many of them have tomato sections.  Going forward, I will ensure that with the new tomato season to cover this topic extensively.

I will note the neighbor’s lawn & white house in the background. The lawn is remarkably tidy – normally it looks more like a wheat crop (Michael Pollan’s father would be proud). I’ll try to remember to show it in another post.

It turns out that we have 3 of the worst invasive plants known to man:

1. Bamboo

2. Bermuda Grass

3. Algerian Ivy

We will detail our fight against each of these nasty invasive plants as we progress.

I thought of writing this post particularly because we cleaned out a section of bamboo that must have been there for 40 years. Here is what the bamboo looked like:

I’m sorry but anything that send out runners like this can’t be a good thing. Further, this stuff pushes right through concrete and recently we found this stuff growing in our garage – in the dark!

I did a quick Google search on, “how to kill bamboo”. The first result had the following advice:

1. You can’t kill it, it might kill you

2. You can try and contain it, but it will always grow back.

3. You might want to move to a new place.

Lots of great advice for someone looking for help. At any rate, we will keep you posted on our progress. I’ll also post a pic on the newly cleared area – not that it will remain bamboo free, but its a start =)

Here is a shot of our Garden: