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:
No comments:
Post a Comment