Monarch Way Station day 1

We started half of the Monarch way station today. We didn't have enough supplies to get it all done. That will come later in the week. 

First before any planing can be done the grass has to be removed/killed. Rather than rent a gas guzzling machine to rip out the grass or using poisons to kill it we opted on smothering. Smothering the grass is really easy and saves on back breaking labor too.  The tools needed are, cardboard, a sprinkler, shovel, soil/compost, or other soil amenities like manure and coffee grounds, tarps (optional).

This is Jacob peeling off the stickers from the cardboard we will be using.

This is the plot we chose, it is the smaller side of our front yard. It measures 15 feet by 30 feet. The minimum for a Monarch Way Station is a 10' by 10' area or 100 square feet. Ours will be larger than the required minimum, yeah for butterfly's and bees!

Jacob is adding our soil amenities, since as previously mentioned the top 2 feet is all rock. We are adding compost, manure, coffee grounds and some garden soil. I'd liked to have added some newspaper or hay but the wind was blowing pretty hard and made adding that impossible. Maybe later...

All done adding stuff! Now we need to tarp it!

Tarps held in place with wood from broken down pallets. this will help the soil "cook" and break down faster thus making a nice garden bed.  We will plant the seeds right on top (after removing the tarp) once we get them ordered.