Recipe for a perpetual natural ground cover

The carpet in the duck yard is entirely of Mother Nature's doing. I seeded nothing.

From the get-go, the land community let me know it DID NOT want a lawn. No matter how hard we tried to grow grass, the chickweed took command and was quickly followed by the plantains, purslane, and dandelions. The Natural World was sending me a message. She likes/she wants a lively and diverse community. The constraints as to what will grow together are soil pH, nutrition, available mositure, sunlight and root depth. It was only when I gave up and let the natural world decide that we were given a thick wild green carpet for the duck yard which provides constant greens and allows for the discovery of many worms and bugs. (Above)

Ingredients:

3 packets of seeds. Heirloom. Local. Salad and soup greens. My ideal is wild arugula, leaf lettuces, and endives. 

I bucket or large mixing bowl

Dry fine soil—enough to fill a bucket

Spoon or trowel for stirring

Patch of fertile soil 6 to 8 hours of sun. 

Liberal irrigating until established.

3 packets should be more than enough to cover 18 square meters of fertile soil

Preparation:

The ideal time for sprouting is the first week of a new moon.

Mix three packets of different salad greens in a bucket of fine soil. Stir frequently until all three packets are evenly distributed throughout the soil.

Sprinkle the mixture over fertile soil. It may take some fine turning to get a feel for how much to distribute.

Water well and keep moist until the seedlings are established. Early morning. Late afternoon.

Seedlings should be up within one to two weeks regardless of temperture. With salad greens, one will not get optimal germination if the temperature is above 28 C or below 11 C. 

Once the leaves are salad size, clip them a bit above the point where the leaves emerge from the ground and divide, allowing the tiny plant enough of itself to regrow. After several harvests leave a number of each species to grow flowers and go to seed. (Do not leave more than ¼ of the total. You can keep harvesting the rest)

Do not weed the bed. Ideally there should be a mix of wild edibles and cultivated. If the soil is fertile and there are gardens nearby you should soon see a few of the local weeds. Acquaint yourself with them. There are plant ID apps and excellent photos on the internet. It is likely that the only weed you may wish to remove is grass. 

Seedlings three weeks old

Seedlings five weeks old

Tomatoes coming up between seedlings

Flowering celery which will go to seed

© www.thesubversivefarmer.net June 11th 2025