An experiment on the Septic Field ....

One thing we're not crazy about is the large septic field we have on the lower part of the property. We thought we were really smart when we told Lee, our excavator, to not plant grass as we wanted it to 'go back to nature'. I'm sure all the contractors got a good laugh out of that! What we got instead this summer was random and huge specimens of just about every weed from the Northern and Southern hemispheres! I'm pretty sure there are a few Venus Fly Traps along with rag weed. And Kim thinks she heard one of them say 'Feed me' while weeding, and has yet to return to the 'Little Shop of Horrors' section of our property. Our new cunning, and probably equally hilarious strategy, is to plant wildflowers. We're envisioning the scene from the Wizard of OZ, with all the flowers ... and perhaps a yellow-mulched road. We'll see!

Anyway, we decided to start small and plant about 400 square feet of the area right after the 'Killing Frost', which I decided meant right after the massive October snowstorm that almost froze us to death after power was out for several days.

Here you can see a picture of Kim shoveling some dirt to load a wheelbarrow for me to take down the hill. We needed to put six inches of top soil down. Kim came down to check the progress, casually mentioning she had spread 40 yards of mulch this past summer. I explained that dirt was heavier then mulch, so she decided to throw on her overalls and check it out herself. Let me tell you, this photo is misleading. Kim filled up about three of her green thimble sized wheel barrows and then exited to get ready for a dinner out and left me to moving dirt into the night.

I should also mention that the bag of seeds was about the size a baggie you'd put your kid's sandwich in. When I saw it, I asked Kim, or should I say Jack, where she got the 'magic seeds' from, that were supposed to cover 400 feet. Turns out she mixed them with sand, and covered about half the area...while grumbling about that the package instructions indicating coverage of more. Not bad, and another bag is being delivered via the web for planting next weekend. Anyway, after all that, you can see how small a piece of land we're planting (left). We'll give an update late next spring.
The good thing about planting this fall is that the melting snow of the spring will water the seeds. Which is a good thing, since the area is many hose extensions from the water source.

Lastly, Kim insisted on adding an 'actual size' photo of the seed package(right), sticking to her claim that she was NOT planted a gigantic beanstalk.