Healthy soil and sustainable growing

[laurabrownmckenzie@att.net]

  We take a multi pronged approach to Bermuda.  First, where the grass is a 
severe problem, I only plant vegetables that can be heavily HEAVILY mulched.  
In the winter, those areas get a good going over with a scuffle hoe and then 
are planted in rye.  I have several beds that sit in my "lawn" (which is made 
up entirely of scruffy grasses no one would want). I have to have the "lawn" 
there because the land slopes steeply. (A sketch of my growing spaces is 
here: http://home.att.net/~ekyorigins/garden.jpg ).   Keeping the Bermuda 
from invading the beds, I have 12 inch perimeters that are kept in rye in the 
winter and kept hoed the rest of the year.  

   Lastly, if I'm digging a large hole (such as for a tomato or a buried 
compost pile), I sift the soil with my hands to take out stolens.  

   Someone 13 or so years ago told me that I wanted to buy coastal Bermuda 
for mulching as it didn't survive up here in North Alamaba.  I wasn't well 
versed in the ways of things then and imported my own problem!!!!!  
Everything else might die in a drought but the coastal Bermuda just keeps 
going.  

Laura