I dug a hole in the yard to get to know it better. I have clay soil, full of small
roots to a depth of at least nine inches. There were worms at the bottom of the hole, too. It's encouraging to know that my soil is deep and alive.
I then teased apart a handful of the soil and separated these organisms:
The only one I can name is the third one in: grass. The landlord pointed out that a few applications of herbicide would create a near-monocrop of it. I'm not sure why society decided it was good and the others are bad, but who am I to question the collective wisdom? Maybe it's pronking, but I want to enter a herbicide-free rat into the race and at least be competitive.
I learned something else today: I've been battling a grape hyacinth infestation in my vegetable garden since the beginning. My lawn, and therefore garden, are full of little bulbs that give the hyacinth the
energy to sprout up little chive-like leaves again and again and again, no matter how many times I pull them out from between my vegetables.
So maybe it's silly, but the stated objective is to turn grass from a minority into the dominant organism. I could try mowing low. I've also thought about covering the whole thing with a tarp for a few weeks and seeing if I can't get the grass to come back stronger than the weeds.