> The only space near the cafe is a strip about 1 1/2 meters wide and 15 > meters long, between the sidewalk and the street. That's with a 1/2 > foot of grass space left on all edges of the garden bed for soil > spillover. I'm confused about this part. It makes me imagine: Sidwalk Six inches of grass 4.5 feet of vegetables Six inches of grass Curb Street Is that correct? If so, then I would strongly (ever so strongly) urge you to remove all of the grass. Grass is an aggressive weed, and you will spend the rest of your life weeding it out of the vegetables. If you want to leave a six-inch edge free of vegetables, I would suggest instead planting a low perennial ground cover, like creeping thyme. As a separate issue, I would also strongly advise against eating anything grown right next to the street, and especially urge against eating anything raw. What about growing plants suitable for flower vases instead? You could demonstrate the _idea_ of urban gardening, and display flowers and other decorative plants in vases on the tables, without any risk of inflicting food-borne illnesses on your patrons. Editing to add: "Plants suitable for flower vases" could include edible flowers and attractive edibles - perennial herbs, chives, daylilies, and, to fill space the first year, nasturtiums. This post was edited by chickenfreak on Sat, Jun 8, 13 at 21:52

Well it's not a diesel, but you could get a great Simplicity Conquest (even comes in 4wd now) with a snowblower, garden cart, Johnny bucket for less than $7500. It would be more than you really need to maintin 1 acre, but would last a long time. It also strips, since it sounds like your intersted in striping. I can't say enough abot the unit I own. I originally started with 3/4 acre to mow and my new property has about 1.5 acres of lawn. Sometimes I'll even mow the pastures with it if I'm too lazy to hook up my rotary mower on my compact tractor. The Simplicity is a real workhorse and I abuse the heck out of mine and it keeps on ticking. 1 more thing, you can get a nifty snowplow from Johnny products now. Here is a link that might be useful: Johnny Bucket

Sounds like a couple of things could be going on. How long has your daughter lived there. Could any herbicides that are long lasting have been sprayed or placed in the soil there in the past? Could this soil have been brought in as fill - it could be lacking nutrients. Possibly an underlayer of impervious soil - dig a deep hole and see what the deepest layer looks like and see how long it takes to drain. If the soil is grey, it doesn't drain and if you find standing water for longer than a day you will probably have to do raised beds. Sometimes an impervious layer of soil is only a foot thick or less if you can drill holes through that layer you may be able to get the water to drain through it. Check with your county extension agent to see if they have an experience with those types of soil in that area. Are you incorporating the organic matter into the soil or just placing it on top of the soil? If you can't dig the soil up enough (at least 6 inches preferably 10 to 12) and add at least 1/3 organic matter - you probably won't be changing the soil structure. You said things just die - the organic matter you are using - is it aged compost - it could be burning the plants if it is too fresh or if you overfertilize the area. If all else fails try raised or mounded beds and plant your color in those - just be careful not to mound soil around the trees she has growing there. For the raised beds use a good quality top soil or bagged soil mixed with aged compost. Linda

Rather than go sentence by sentence disagreeing with ianna, I'll just skip ahead to yardtractor1. Listen to him. If your yard is flat and drains perfectly, then any topsoil or topdressing or sand or ANYTHING you bring in (except compost) will screw up your drainage. If you have low spots in the yard where the water collects when it rains, then either 1) bring in enough sand or top soil to level it or allow it to drain properly for your location, or 2) dredge away the area where the soil is damming up the water. There is no 6-inch standard for topsoil. I find that statement to be hilarious. In my neighborhood in San Antonio my house is on solid limestone with crushed limestone brought in as fill and "topsoil." I have supplemented that with outside topsoil but mostly with washed beach sand. And by the way the extra topsoil and sand messed up my drainage, so that was a long time ago. I'd definitely do it different today. Then my sister-in-law at the beach has about 3,000 feet of sand under her house. So how does this 6-inch standard work? Is that the average of all averages? Any soil you have, unless it is poisoned with something horrible, can be corrected and turned into wonder soil. If it is chemically imbalanced (99% chance that it is), get a $25 soil test from Logan Labs in Ohio. If it is biologically weak (again, 99% chance it is), then grow grass and begin now applying organic fertilizer. The effect you are looking for with the high spot in the middle of the yard is called "crowned." Is there a problem with too much soil? Yes. As yardtractor mentioned, drainage is the main problem. But here is a picture of another problem. This house is in a neighborhood where someone got them started with annual topdressing of 1/4 inch with topsoil. After 40 years the soil is 10 inches above grade. When it rains the soil washes out into the sidewalk and into the street. These people have installed landscape edging just to contain the flow of mud. I have lots of pictures of Topdressing Gone Wild.