We have a spot in back where we have started a brush pile. My thought is that I will eventually try out a hugel bed back there. We have about half the fruit bushes/trees in the ground now (surrounded by heavy wire cages to keep the deer - rats on stilts - off of them). Going to try to plant the rest soon. The herb spiral is in and it's amazing. Nasturtium and lavender are blooming and everything else is growing lush (except for the French Tarragon which looks sad).

I can tell you what I have, but no photos! Stevia Chocolate mint Chippewa and Pink Lemonade Blueberry Illinois Everbearing Mulberry Prok Persimmon Starks 2-N-1 trees: pear, cherry, plum Pawpaws, Penn. Golden and Sunflower All are in their first year, but I am excited about them.

Any chance you can solarize without causing too much trouble? 3" of compost would probably be enough to get started, especially if you can solarize first, and then till in the compost. Top that with 2" of hardwood mulch, and you're golden. Also, start going to Starbucks and ask them to collect the used grounds for you. They'll give it to you free. Sometimes I'm able to get about 40 lbs from a single trip to the store up the street. If there is a composting facility near you, you might be able to get free compost or free mulch. The city of Allen has a free compost program. The only problem is that you might end up with undesirable results. My front yard in those pics is nothing more than Texas clay with 2" of compost and coffee grounds on top, with 1.5" of mulch on top of that. Also be careful along your foundation. Typically you want to maintain the mulch line at or below 3" from the top of the foundation to prevent termites. I tend to go a little higher - 1.5-2" from the top of the foundation, but our entire property has a 10 year termite warranty. Here is a link that might be useful: Solarize your grass

I agree with the comments of the others. It also is important to study your sunlight patterns at different parts of the year to understand which areas adjacent to structures are shaded at which times of the year. In some cases, you can use that shading to your advantage. As a rural resident, I want to add that every living creature of every kind will enjoy every edible plant (and many that we human consider merely ornamentals) you have, so don't plant too much too soon without fencing and other protection because, if you do, you may find that the deer, rabbits and other creatures are devouring your plants just about as quickly as you can plant them. I cannot grow much of anything that is not fenced in so that deer and rabbits cannot get to it, and there's lots of other hungry animals and insects (and birds) that will devour every edible thing you plant, so have a plan in place. You might want to grow your lettuce in containers in the beginning, in order to have it high enough above the ground that the rabbits can't eat it. I grow some lettuce near the house in containers that are about 2' tall, and grow the rest in the fenced-in garden, which is a combination of vegetables, herbs, fruit and flowers protected by an 8' tall fence. In our early years here we had a shorter fence and too many creatures found ways over it or under it and devoured both ornamental and edible plantings. While edible landscaping is wonderful, when you are rural or semi-rural it can be very hard to do it unless you have adquate measures in place to exclude wildlife, the neighbors' cows or goats that get loose, neighbors' dogs or cats (as well as your own pets) that like to dig, etc. I protect your fruit trees with tomato cages their first year or two to keep the deer from eating them or beating them to death and use hardware cloth or plastic tree protectors to keep rabbits from nibbling the bark and girdling the young fruit trees before they get a chance to grow. My advice is to go slow and figure out if the wild critters expect to come eat everything you plant. I finally had to largely give up on the idea of having any sort of edible landscaping around the house and just focus on the fenced garden. Otherwise, everything I plant just turns into Deer Chow and Rabbit Chow. I now have two very large fenced-in garden plots with ugly 8' tall fences and grow most everything within them. The actual landscaping around the house itself is just mostly shrubs, trees and groundcovers, with just a few flowering plants that the wildlife generally do not feed upon (but in drought years, they will even eat plants that they normally leave alone). For the most part, ignore those lists entitled "Plants that deer won't eat" or whatever. The deer do not read those lists and I have learned they will eat almost anything if they are hungry enough (and they often are indeed hungry enough). The battle to protect fruit trees (and peaches in particular) from hungry squirrels is an ongoing saga here. My fruit trees largely are not inside the fenced garden (though I am starting to plant more fruit trees inside fenced areas) and I have to fight the birds, squirrels and deer for every piece of fruit we harvest. Bird netting helps, but it is not even bird proof and certainly not squirrel and deer proof.