I just recently moved into a new house and was presented with a very large front and backyard to do with whatever I like. The previous tenants moved out maybe two months ago and had pulled up and taken all of their plants with them, and so the yards are completely overgrown with grass and covered with twigs from the neighbor's tree.

I've only ever done indoor container gardening before (yay apartment living), so I'm really excited! In addition I have a lot of time on my hands because I was laid off very recently...so that also means that I have a very limited budget.

My mother (who has a very green thumb) lives nearby and has supplied me with plants, seeds, and advice. But she's in a higher tax bracket than me and so can't really advise me on cheaper alternatives. So I turn to you for some advice on ground preparation.

I'm planning a mostly 'natural' wildflower(ish) garden -- with California native plants that have lots of flowers to attract bees and birds. Drought-resistant and relatively low maintenance once established.

So, my questions:

1. Any ideas where to get a weed-whacker or any other methods I can use to clear out the grass? I can't really afford a gardener or even a laborer to clear it out for me.

2. What should I condition or fertilize the soil with? It seems to be mainly clay.

3. For mulch, it seems I can get either leaves or shredded wood chips for free from craigslist. Would the leaves (and/or coffee grounds from Starbucks) work as fertilizer too?

4. I'm a bit afraid to ask for the free woodchips/leaves, as the ads say that I have to accommodate an entire truckload (8-10 cubic feet)... I've poked about online and I probably would need that much for the entire garden, but exactly how much space does it take up if it's still in a pile? I'm imagining a mountain of mulch sitting on my front yard, dismaying my neighbors.

Any other advice on free/cheaper alternatives to anything for a beginner gardener would be great! Thanks!

2. Fertilizing promotes weeds over wildflowers. Only fertilize if you have a soil problem.

3. Short-term, leaves tend to pull nutrients from the soil, but long-term they add nutrients,in the right amounts, and they improve the soil structure to boot. I love leaf mulch.

4. Eight to ten cubic feet is a big pile, not a mountain. My four cubic feet of mulch was a pile about 3 feet high. With a wheel barrow and a few days time, you can spread 10 cubic feet over a garden area. Assuming the pile does not linger for weeks, a pile of mulch is perfectly acceptable to neighbors.

Looks like you are the right track. Enjoy!

Do you know about the Soil, Compost, & Mulch forum here? You may find some ideas on improving your soil there. Here's the link: http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/soil/

Lots of us garden very inexpensively using mostly compost. It's good for the environment also.

The most frugal thing you can do is shovel work if you have the time. Dig out all of the beds to about two shovel depths, and loosen/turn over the bottom layer of the trench (if you go this deep you won't have to water very much if at all). Add lots of organic junk (leaves and small stickes etc.) from the yard. Put on some granulated lawn and garden fertilizer (very inexpensive in a big bag this time of year), and put the dirt back in, mixing it up a bit. Save some topsoil for a top layer (so you don't have leaves and sticks pokeing up). This will keep the clay from compacting, and it will compost itself over the next couple of years. The fertilizer helps the break down process, and give your plants enough boost to offset the nutrient robbing nature of the raw organic material/junk. If you have compost and/or fine organic material like grass clippings, mix it in with the top layer.

I like to "quick" compost wood chips by adding high nitrogen lawn fertilizer (first number on the bag e.g. "28:4:5") this will get the pile heated up and get you good compost in one season rather than taking a couple of years. You could also add wood chips directly to the soil along with fertilizer, but this could cause growth restrictions the first year. How you want to do it depends on if you are growing perennials and want to get them planted right away the first year even if the soil isn't quite ready for optimal growth (add chips top soil), or if you want to wait a year for best first year results (wait for them to compost).

Dealing with Clay....If you do as I suggested above, you will end up with clods of clay. Plant roots will infiltrate these somewhat and help break them down, but a good thing you can do is to let them sit on top to dry out and then shatter them with a whack of the back of the shovel. I like wood chips in clay (used either way described above). The chunkiness gives long lasting 'fluff' and humus to the soil. Things like grass clippings/fine compost seem to have shorter term benefits to clay.

Clay soil is terrible around houses because the construction process strips off the topsoil and the machinery and foot traffic of the workers compacts the subsoil into hardpan that roots can't penetrate. People often only loosen this up to one shovel depth before planting, and then have to water alot (or let their plants suffer) because the plants quickly suck out all of the moisture from that relatively thin layer. They also may not add enough organic material (which is what holds onto/recycles nutrients long term).
I like to use a short "D" handle shovel for this type of work, but that's just me.

I borrowed a hand tiller called "the claw" from a neighbor at our new house and used that to make beds and then just raked out the grass clumps and watered it threw for a couple of days and I was fine. If your having a hard time with weeds before you have planted you could always sanitize the bed too. Simply, useing a blow tourch to burn out the weeds and then turing the soil and buring every inch of the dirt to make sure any seeds or roots get ruined.

I have seen sanitazion happen alot around here in places where people make beds out of grass plots. The best way to get grass dried and dead like is a baby pool over the plot, and it gives you a perfect round shape if that is the sort of thing your looking for.

Digging up the yard was just too much for me. This was a recommendation I heard somewhere (I don't remember where now). I ended up with most of the front and back yard gardened with flowers and all of it was done this way. I even had a small vege garden and this was done the same way.

I am all organic so everything I do for fertilizer and pest control is organic. I use orange oil for ants, dried molasses and fish and seaweed for fertilizer. I encourage birds, bees, butterflies, and good insects to take care of the bad bugs.

I'm on a limited budget too because of being laid off, so this year I bought a truckload of compost from the City. It was $27.00 and it was a manageable-sized mound of dirt. I was able to get it into the beds in just a couple of hours. Cheaper than buying bags of dirt from the store! I'm going to buy another load because I'm starting another bed, but won't need all of it right away. I'm just going to mound it up in a corner of the yard and it won't be bad because it's really not that big of a hill of dirt and this will be cheaper in the long run.

Of course, it won't stay in the corner for long because I know there will have to be another bed that has to be done up!

I used it last year, and it worked great for me, choking out a massive amount of overgrown weeds. No digging, no tilling, no pulling weeds. The earthworms did all the work for me. Right now I have a new lasagna bed "cooking" on the front lawn--I layered wet newspapers over the grass, sprinkled on used coffee grounds, filters and all, some old leaves leftover from fall, and topped it with a layer of wood chips I got from the neighbor's tree trimmers. Easy, attractive, and I didn't spend a cent. When I'm ready to plant, I just push back the layers and stick the plant in the hole.

It sounds like you have plenty of access to all the materials you need for a lasagna garden. Grass clippings from the lawn, newspapers (minus any shiny color pages, those have lead ink) and wood chips, you're good to go.

I agree that 8-10 cubic feet should be manageable, especially if you have a wheelbarrow, shovel, and a neighborhood teenager you can bribe with pizza or other goodies. You might also find other neighbors who would like to have some of the mulch themselves.

Good luck!