I’ve been reading the Green Is Sexy blog for the past few weeks.  The site was created by Rachel McAdams and two of her friends as a place to share tips and advice on on ways to make an impact on the environment.

Yesterday they posted Gold, Frankincense and Cardboard, and I am going to do this in the Spring to help with my garden.  Our kitchen is stockpiled with cardboard from Christmas presents and it won’t all fit in our recycle bin.  Make sure you check out their site for more great tips and advice.  If everyone does their part to help reduce their carbon footprint then we all win.

Our cardboard pile

“If you celebrate Christmas, chances are there’s more cardboard under the tree than anything else once the wrapping comes off. Make the most of all those boxes by storing them someplace dry and out of the way (away from the furnace, fireplace, radiator or water heater, please) until spring. Cardboard is an awesome material to use for weed control when laying out a large garden bed or as a base for a lasagna garden or raised vegetable bed. When planting season begins, simply pick the spot for your garden and lay down a layer of flattened cardboard, overlapping the pieces slightly so no light gets through. Lay down a second layer on top, staggering the placement to overlap the edges as if you were laying bricks. Layer organic matter (mulch, soil, etc) on top then plant your little heart out. The cardboard will last long enough to kill any weeds living underneath it and will eventually decompose to become part of the soil. Elvis may have had a blue Christmas, but yours can be green if you think a few steps ahead and use those empty shirt boxes to help save you time weeding this spring.”

I’m pretty impressed with myself.  Next year I’m going to grow a whole garden.

I also planted some spinach, beans, carrots, basil and cucumbers in the garden and will take some pics of them this week to post.

Here are the peppers and tomatoes so far:

Anyway, on to this summer. Our grass was growing in clumps and looked like chives, so we’ve been calling it chive grass (pretty clever). It was only in the front half of the lawn so we decided to wait a bit and see if it thinned out or went away or something. This weekend the chive grass sprouted pretty white flowers in a semi circle and I was in a gardening mode (first time since we lived on the farm…that’s another story altogether) and decided it was time to do something about it.

My initial idea was to transplant some of the flowers into the garden on either side of the vegetables I planted (carrots, spinach, sweet peas). I took one of the flowers inside to do some research on the internet and find out what it was.

What I found is that the flower is called Star of Bethlehem and it is an aggressive variety of Lily that is toxic to animals and people if eaten!!!! I panicked because Harley goes out and plays in the backyard (he’s a playmachine) and he eats grass on a daily basis, as well as our neighbor has little girl and they come and play in our backyard because theirs is a parking pad. So I started doing more research on how to get them out of my lawn and it turns out there is nothing you can do other than dig up the bulbs and throw them away. You can see from the photo below how dense this is. All the green “chive grass” around it is part of the plant and has bulbs as well.


So I started the arduous task of removing all these little flowers and it is really hard work. One little flower has about 20 little bulbs 2″ below the surface. It’s very, very heaving and my back is still sore. The photo below shows what I pulled out and if you look to the top along the patio line, that is all the area I covered, which is only about 3 feet.

I had to stop because Chad made me called the landlord before I ripped up the entire lawn.

Chad came home after band last night and dug up 4 more brown garden waste bags and we’re still only half way done.

So anyone who feels like getting some aggression out on my lawn, feel free to come over and help!

Grass Cutting