Saving my front yard

The city had to do some essential plumbing work on our street, but the contractor did not go with a light hand to change the pipes: we have lost a whole hedge, most of our herb garden and nearly all the grass. All without notice.

But the most heart-wrenching part is the soil we worked so hard to build over the past ten years is gone. My dear earthworms and nematodes and mycellium.. all gone! The contractors are supposed to restore "as is", but I'm sure that will mean crappy soil from god knows where and rolls of Kentucky Bluegrass full of chemical yuck.

I'm investigating whether we can get some money to do it ourselves instead, but even if we can't get cash back, I'm pretty certain I'd rather control what goes in there.

My question (in addition to a request for your empathy... I'm sure you can understand my anguish) is "what do I do now?".

I'm not adverse to getting rid of the grass, but my kids insist they need room for snow forts so I'm limited to things that die down in winter and resist some trampling at least for half the yard.

I'd also like a larger herb/tea garden (it's all partial shade, so herbs, medicinal flowers...), maybe removing what's left of the grass and putting in ground covers and mulching the alleys?

For the soil itself, I'm thinking of getting rid of large rocks as much as possible, bringing in a lot of compost or well-rotted manure and mixing that in (it's all disturbed earth anyway).

Pictures show the current state, and the difference in soil between what was there (top) and what we got instead (bottom half)

What do you think? Any ideas on how to turn this disaster into an opportunity?

Oh Kena, how horrid for you! I'm afraid damage like that won't be fixed overnight. I don't suppose you get compensation for the lost plants either....

So glass half full....you get a chance to rethink your front garden -  what goes where and new herb garden.

It's a bit like having a new build garden. I found a couple of threads which may be of help:

https://permies.com/wiki/89899/Advice-soil-building

https://permies.com/t/33980/dead-soil

Are they likely to want to dig it all up again sometime in future? You may want to think in terms of easy to establish plants, or ones that can stand being transplanted in future.

Virtual Hugs from me.

It's unlikely... They are upgrading post-war pipes so my hope is that we won't be going through that again in my lifetime... But we most likely have a few weeks left of disturbances still.

They might replant the hedge (which is not super useful in terms of permaculture but essential for some level of privacy) but they are unlikely to replace the perrenial herbs. I'll try to salvage what I can in containers for the remnant of the season.

I will be documenting my attempts at saving my front yard.

Day 1:

- germination test to see if my existing buckwheat and daikon seeds are still viable.

- save what I can from the herb garden (move to containers)

- get the large visible rocks out

- assess the state of the damage (conclusion : it's all clay, machine-compressed into a thick layer. I can't get a showel in more than a few millimeters)

If I were in this predicament, I would see if I could get wood chips from somewhere fast.

Once I had a front-yard full of wood chips, I would plan what to do next and a larger herb/tea garden sounds wonderful.

Next I would get busy growing mushrooms which will help with the earthworms, nematodes, and mycelium that has been lost.

Where are you in general terms?  I hear post war and I think somewhere in the UK but I don't know why it makes me think that.

I know we never had enough snow for forts when I was a child. We made grass forts in the fields by breaking and pulling up rooms in the fields of grass that grew over our heads.  This was as much a sign of how small we were as the height of the grasses, but it is still a treasured memory. Maybe you can work with your children to plant a garden that they can incorporate into their snow fort.  We always put our entrance by a thorny tree because we thought it would keep the adults and bigger kids out.

Casie Becker wrote:Where are you in general terms?  ...
Maybe you can work with your children to plant a garden that they can incorporate into their snow fort.  We always put our entrance by a thorny tree because we thought it would keep the adults and bigger kids out.

I'm in Montreal, so hot summers and plenty of snow in winter.

Love your idea of making the forts part of the design. It will probably help the girls feel responsible for the garden year round.

Update:

I've been told by the contractor they still need to dig in two weeks, so actual green mulching is on hold until they're done.

But my test patch of daikon is doing fine. I am amazed it can actually grow in that hard packed clay with not a trace of organic material. Go radishes!

My mom is also sending me some mixed green mulch seeds from her favorite organic gardening pusher. I'll try to mix both.

I haven't been able to get answers as to what soil, exactly, they will use to repair, but I'm escalating inquiries. If I can't get clear answers, I'll assume it's contaminated top soil from any random urban construction site and tell them to leave my yard alone.

I've also started the process to get the underlying clay layer tested for lead (could be better than my baseline if it's clay from deep underneath, but could also be worse. In any case, I'll need that data. But soil lead tests are not common in Canada and complex to obtain.)

To be followed...

So sorry this happened to you.  Looks like they gave you the crappiest heavy clay fill dirt they could find.  Having lived with soil like that I have contemplated the use of a portable backyard cement mixer to work the soil in batches, adding some river stones to help grind the clay clots into powder, adding some compost and coarse masonry sand. Alternatively, if you have a tiller, use that, though I don't think you'd have as much control.

Good luck.

It's actually what our subsoil looks like with gravel mixed in, and lots of compaction. It's a mix of whatever was under the street and under my neighbour's yard (our own dear soil and all of our plants are buried under the street a few yards down, since they dig as they go and use that to fill the area they just completed.)

No wonder we have issues with water drainage during heavy rainstorms. At least that part is local, so that's good I guess?

They told me they'd bring in about 3 inches of top soil on top of that, and when I asked where that would come from, they told me "don't worry, it's going to be good soil, you'll just need to add fertilizer". That did *not* reassure me in any way, but I'm excalating with the project supervisor.

(I feel like the cranky old lady at the town hall, but it shouldn't feel like I'm throwing a tantrum to ask for lead-free soil that will not poison my kids, right? It's like the bare minimum.)

I feel like if you present them some particular requirements for the soil to be considered good in your view, i.e. a ph between 6-7, loam, silty loam, clay loam, evidence of diverse microbial life, etc. And you start spouting off this list to them, they will shut up with the "Don't worry, it will be good soil" crap realizing that they're not talking to a crazy lady at all, just a very particular one who has had her growing space ruined without warning.

But maybe not, might just make them more annoying to deal with.

I'm not even that picky. I'll settle for "soil that is free of lead, arsenic, fuel or other contaminants". Even that is far from being a guarantee if they scrape off soil from a random building site.

Even the soil they used as filler is probably tainted by decades of urban run-off... Which is why I'll get it tested so I have some leverage if needed.

Update nearly a year later. The contractors kept messing around for no good reason, including filling our yard with gravel "so people will not hurt themselves falling down five inches from the sidewalk".

We had to complain three times for them to get at least 6 inches of that crap out, and then we told them we'd take care of the rest and NOT to put in industrial Kentucky bluegrass in rolls. Thank goodness we were working from home do we could stop them everyone they ignored our multiple requests.

Sowed a mix of green mulch (including peas, alfafa, winter rye and others) and let that grow a bit. Then we had three cubic yards of good garden soil delivered, deliminated garden beds in the middle and topped with ramial wood chips. Inoculated with mycorhizes and planted our herb and tea garden (mostly perennials)

It's still fairly crappy dead soil underneath, but I'm hoping the green mulch  added some organic material at the interface and the microorganisms and worms will eventually do they job bringing life back into the soil.

Reverse work-in-progress pics.  In this one, the difference in soils is flabbergasting.

More wip, after removing about 20 buckets of gravel. This is what the contractors considered "perfectly good soil" and could not understand we wanted removed.

We only managed to get them to remove the top 6 inches because that's what was in their contract.  That picture shows what was left after the worst was taken out, and before the green mulch.