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Can’t grow anything but grass because they stripped off all the topsoil from the land that used to be a farm.
If you want a garden you need to buy soil
Grass (the trimmed always green lawn type) is more demanding than many other crops. If the grass is growing there, then the topsoil is good enough for some other things too. Also the topsoil is something you can develop, especially on such small scale as personal garden. Make compost, grow less demanding plants first nad your soil will get better. You can grow things on sand mixed with a bit of compost.
edit: looks like I'm wrong.
Do people in this thread really think the developer took the topsoil and sold it to someone else?
Bitch, please. Topsoil isn't valuable enough to strip and truck somewhere. The tiny layer we humans can grow food in is just that thin in a large part of North America.
Deal with it.
They do though. They rip it all up and sell it off when they’re doing construction.
Source: used to work in commercial landscaping. Which on new jobsites involves bringing in new soil to replace the soil that’s gone.
That being said, there are places in the US where there isn’t much topsoil to begin with, it’s true.
Yeah but they don't cart it off as part of some nefarious scheme to deprive home owners of the ability to grow their own produce.
Construction regulations dictate requirements for hardness and consistency. They test these metrics before construction can begin. The regulations have these requirements so peoples houses don't... you know... fall over?
If you just bulldoze whatever and make the ground flat it's going to be full of organic material that will decay and slump over time.
They have to remove that top soil, and of course it has some value so it can be sold rather than dumped.
Well, you're not supposed to just plop houses on the ground, you should dig foundations on a stable substrate, and then build the house. It might require a bit more work of course.
Euuuh when you build a house fondation yes. But we're talking about the garden next to it, right?
For a one off house yes, for developments of multiple blocks they just strip the lot.
jokes on you, here in the south the top soil is old swap and sometimes actual farm top soil, it is indeed bagged and sold off sometimes
Exactly. When I resodded our front lawn I kept finding building materials. I guess it's common for construction workers to bury the trash when building a house rather than dispose of it correctly.
Every time I dig on my land I get two maybe three inches of topsoil and then the hardest goddamn clay I've ever encountered
Unfortunately you may need someone with a disc harrow or tiller to help the first time. It's not preferred but I've no other ideas. Maybe Solar Punk does?
Which I would totally do if I had more than a 1/4 acre, most of which is taken up with a house and other structures. Getting a tractor and harrow out here for an 800 sq ft garden doesn't make sense. I'll probably do raised beds this year.
I can't wait until I can move back to the country. The suburbs are the absolute worst.
Straw bale gardening sounds nifty, too. I'd try it if the previous owners of my place hadn't already put in a couple of raised beds.
Alternate take, fix your 1/4 acre the natural way if you’re gonna be there a while.
Start a compost pile.
Aerate, plant clover, spread compost every year, plant a native tree or two and native plants underneath.
No need to till, just slowly amend.
I’m not planning on being here in four years so it doesn’t make sense to do anything that would make the house look “weird” and make it harder to sell.
it doesn’t make sense to do anything that would make the house look “weird” and make it harder to sell.
My guy you’re complaining about a problem you’re part of the cause of then.
Trees are weird? A healthy lawn is weird?
Why complain if you have the environment you want 🤷
Because I want to make as much of a profit on this house as possible so I can move somewhere I can see the stars again
You're assuming that I want to stay in the suburbs when the least of my complaints is the lack of topsoil
Cool.
You complained about your yard being the way it is, it is the way it is because people don’t care enough to do differently. It’s not hard to fix it, compost is “free” and throwing some seeds down is very little work. Trees aren’t super expensive bought young and add value.
I assumed friendly advice on how to improve the conditions you were complaining about for relatively little effort would be beneficial, but here we are. Take care my dude.
And if I was planning on staying in a noisy, crowded suburb my entire life it would be appreciated. But I'm not, and most people don't care about this so spending my money redoing my bathrooms will have a better ROI so I can fuck off to a place where I'd gladly plant trees and spread wildflower seeds.
Also, it solves the least of my problems with this place. Now, if you told me to take a BB gun to all the streetlights causing light pollution then we'd be in business.
I mean paying someone to borrow their/ till may be less expensive? That said, I like raised bed too. Easier to manage. Right now I'm looking at permaculture but not sure if I'm cut out for it.
Even if you have soil, in a whole lot of cities/municipalities/counties... there are zoning restrictions on growing certain amounts and kinds of plants/vegetables.
And HOAs. They all have their own restrictions as well.
Wanna collect rainwater?
Regulations on that too.
Wanna start a compost bin?
Well your neighbor can complain it smells bad in the summer. Might attract dangerous critters.
Hell, probably just laying down a sufficient amount of top soil might be enough to get a visit from an HOA rep or a county zoning wonk.
As a German this amount of regulations, rules and bureaucracy astonishes me :D
Im Germany, there might be similar regulations for collecting rain water or having a compost depending on your commune.
Yes, but everybody ignores them
I’m not denying this happens in some places, but it’s not universal. I live in the suburbs and grow veggies during the summer. The state I live in has “right to garden” laws that prevent a lot of HOA restrictions. My city also has a rain barrel program to encourage their use and offers discounts on barrels.
Bad smells are a reasonable point though.
Imissions of all kind (noise, smell) should be regulated. If you put a compost bin at the edge of your property, your neighbor should have a right to demand its removal.
That's just a common law tort called nuisance.
Compost helps, storage is the issue. I'm ok with it open but not okay with the timber rattlers, cotton mouths and copperheads different scavengers would attract.
raised beds, kinda silly like a fridge in a heated house in a snow storm kinda way but they do work
Compost helps but you need at least a year to get good compost and you need way more than an individual household can supply.
Once you start growing plants, you'll have much more compostable material than just the kitchen waste. You can also compost grass and tree leaves.
Yes, I've been discussing it with a neighbor. Storage is the current challenge. We need an old freezer with the coils gutted (snakes love coils, anyone with a boa or python for any length of time and a sofa can tell you!) or something. We're looking.
snakes love coils, anyone with a boa or python for any length of time and a sofa can tell you!
That's actually adorable (when it's not wild/poisonous) and reminds me of how Odo's quarters had interesting objects he liked to take the form of
I miss my snake.
I figured they took the soil from digging the foundation and spread it around the yard in order to grade it and that's why the street is lower than the yard.
They do, but after they strip most of the good stuff off the top. Which kind of makes sense because it’s gonna be ruined by the construction. Top soil is only about 5-10 inches deep in most places and pretty compressible so any foundation is going to be deeper.
The real crime is plowing up farmland for tract housing.