New Construction

 

I have been thinking about new construction a lot lately. This is probably because we live in an area where many new subdivisions are being built. A thought that occurred to me is how hard is it to garden in these new subdivisions? I think there are several strikes against gardening in these settings.

Soil compaction
Just today I was walking through a new subdivision, parts of which are still under construction. One of the things I noticed was how heavily compacted is the soil. When a new subdivision is being built, site preparation begins. This is often involve stripping off a lot of the topsoil, piling it up in a big heap, and selling it off. More on this later. I have no idea how many times the average piece of property is run over by a backhoe, dump truck, or other heavy piece of equipment, but it's a lot, and this all leads to soil compaction. Why is this bad? When soils are compacted they are extra-heavy, air pockets are squeezed out of them, and it is often difficult for roots to grow in them.  Biological activity, like decomposition, greatly slows down. This is why you see many trees in subdivisions not make it after a few years, there's really nowhere for the roots to go easily.

Construction debris
What I have observed, though this may not be universally true, is that when one house is being built, the lot next door is used to park the dumpster and/or to dump construction debris. Not just bits of wire and conduit, but also piles of gravel, chunks of wood, broken plasterboard, dumped paint. Many of these things, when they got to a certain size, are impossible to extract from the soil and linger, later interfering with planting.

Soil type
I wrote earlier that topsoil is often stripped off the top of the entire subdivision and moved elsewhere. Once I looked up the soil type in my general area and was pleased to find that I was in an area of Pamunkey loam, one of the most beautiful soils in America. However, I live in ta subdivision, and the Pamunkey loam was probably stripped off a long time ago. The top few layers of the soil are the most important. This is where leaves and other organic debris are breaking down producing wonderful soil texture and many nutrients. Often under that are less nutrient-dense soil, perhaps clay, sand, or gravelly dirt.  This does not make gardening impossible, but does necessitate raised bed gardening.

HOA'S
If you buy into a subdivision with a homeowners association, and many are these days, you often find severe restrictions on your ability to garden. One of the frustrating things is that you are required to have a lawn, which requires lots of polluting upkeep. If your sunniest place is in the front yard and you want to put a vegetable garden there, chances are you will not be able to do so. Indeed, some homeowners associations are so restrictive that they even dictate the type and number of trees and shrubs you can plant in your yard, not to mention height of the grass, size of any flower beds, the need to have foundation plantings etc. Some people like this, they feel makes the subdivision have a uniform appearance and keeps up property values. But I find it aesthetically unpleasant, restrictive, boring, and frustrating.

Lawn chemicals
Because you are often required to have a lawn in many subdivisions, you are essentially committed to polluting the environment. Grass is not a plant that grows equally well everywhere: in fact, it is fairly fragile, subject to lots of pests and diseases. To keep a lawn looking healthy (whether it is really healthy or not is a different question), you have to use a mixture of fertilizers, pesticides, selective herbicides, fungicides, and nematode-preventing chemicals. All of these make it pretty tough to have a garden.  Who would want to eat produce that was contaminated with this stuff? If you ever watch a lawn company worker spray their chemicals you know that they are not very discriminating nor selective and spray in wide arcs. Indeed, if your neighbor sprays and you don't, you will often get chemical drift into your yard and plantings.

So, obviously subdivisions with homeowners associations are not for me. They may be for you, but then maybe you're not the folks reading this blog?

 An interesting essay on the history of the American lawn: 

 History of the...