Lawns where I live (in the rainy pacific northwest of the United States) tend to evolve rapidly from grass toward a combination of clover, dandelions and moss. The "Salad Days Yard" adopts what many find a frustrating battle into an edible outdoor carpet.
Tired of that inedible grass everywhere in your yard? Do you have a grass allergy and hate mowing? The "Salad Days Yard" seed pack, seeds your selected yard space with both wild and garden variety salad ingredients for fresh edible greens. Grab a double handful and enjoy your meal.
SEED SPECIFICATIONS: Most of the seeds in the packet are edible clover and dandelions, but also included are a smattering of red and green lettuce, spinach and various other nutritious salad plants, all of the hardiest variety possible. The good-sized packet includes a nutrient gel to jump-start lawn growth and comes with a garden hose attachment sprayer. Once grown the Salad Days Yard can be walked on for the most part. Any moss that creeps in is low lying and therefore benign to salad preperation. Weeding and other care still required for the inevitable non-edible weeds that show up. A waterproof card illustrates the consumable plants for those new to gardening.
CHEF's SALAD VERSION: This addition includes chickens, added after lawn is grown. The chickens kill the garden pests and ultimately are added as protein to the owner's meal (rinse salad well). Chicken preparation manual and kit included.
Now if I can just figure out a way to include bacon bits and croutons...-- Whirligig, Apr 28 2006 Well the orbital toast droppers specified elsewhere would work for croutons.
Be sure to add some green onions or wild garlic to your mix, yum.-- Galbinus_Caeli, Apr 29 2006 + make sure to include stretches of thyme, spearmint, lemongrass, oregano, marjoram, basil, etc.
I put in a raised bed garden last winter & now go out every day for lunch to cut a few lettuce and / or spinach leaves & what ever herb I feel like for my sandwich at lunch. It's great.
(they make bacon out of turkey (I don't like it), so it could possibly be made from chicken.)-- Zimmy, Apr 29 2006 Welcome to the 1/2B! [Whirligig]. Battin' 1000 so far. I envy you!-- Zimmy, Apr 30 2006 Thanks [Zimmy], I'll try to do the halfbakery proud.
This is one idea I'm seriously looking at for a 4'x8' sample area. I have a grass allergy and therefore don't enjoy mowing or dealing with yard grass. Besides it seems like such a waste of time and space to grow a crop you never eat and have to spend at least a few hours a week tending.
I like the suggestions for green onions and herbs too. I hadn't thought of making the chicken into bacon; maybe smoked and jerked chicken would come close...and of course the chickens would have a pen where their eggs could be collected for extra protein in the chef's salad mix.-- Whirligig, May 01 2006 [Whirligig] My first area in the back yard was made out of CMU & is almost 4'x8'. I'm not sure, but I think that the fact that it is raised helps prevent some pests & makes it easier to care for. I have it at 2 blocks high (about 1/2 block buried & a 4" cmu cap). It takes quite a bit of dirt to fill that volume, though. I originally wanted it 3 blocks high, but figured that I could always add another row at the end of the season. (at around $1 a piece it seems the cheapest option, but you can't just load up 30 blocks in an avg. car) 6 of the herbs I grow are in a 4" raised bed in between my house & the sidewalk. I divided them up w/ a row of bricks.
It's been some work to put it in, care (not much -mostly watering & harvesting), etc., but to me, it seems worth it. You might try to find a copy of "Square Foot Gardening". & if you do try a salad yard, mulch can be your friend.
Not a small part of my decision to put in the first of I hope 4 raised gardens was the fact that it reduced the area I had to mow. (plus my kids are less reluctant to eat veggies if they know they came from the garden that they "helped" with).-- Zimmy, May 02 2006 Thanks [Zimmy], all this salad talk has compelled me gorge myself on a chef's salad as we speak, yumm <crunch, crunch>.-- Whirligig, May 05 2006 I wonder if someone could start an Edible Landscaping service? <edit> damn. someone already has.-- Zimmy, May 06 2006 random, halfbakery