Post-Industrial Gardening

When I decided to put in a biointensive garden, I knew the double-dig would be hard work. Discovering that I had to do an archeology excavation instead meant pouring more sweat into the soil. Apparently, the company that built my house decided to use landfill instead of dirt, then covered it with 3 inches of burmuda grass turf. Underneath lay 2 foot blocks of concrete, 8-12 in chunks of concrete, spark plugs, rusted fishing weights, wire and nail, conduit, shards of glass, plastic hotels from Monopoly, 15 year old styrofoam cups. an old pocket knife, even an arrowhead. My shovel lost its tip, I nearly lost my patience when the volume of trash filled a 5 gallon bucket for every 12 square feet dug, and my creed, "You can't throw it away, there is no away", got reinforced.

After digging the garden three times and running the dirt through at sieve, I have redeeming my backyard from the construction waste and garbage. How are those in poverty going to dig without my hardened steel shovel.

Cut your waste stream or the world will suffer the consequences.