I was wondering if wheatgrass would work. I have about 30 or 40 lbs in wheatgrass seeds already and would like to avoid spending money to buy more seed on something I don't have.

Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks!

Check out FAQ on this site for the info about Interbay Mulch, which was developed in our area. It works well & prevent our heavy rains from compacting the soil all winter.

If you've ever had something setting on bare earth for awhile then move it you'll notice the worms & loose soil underneath. That's what Interbay mulch method does & more with the compost material decomposing.

After building many garden beds over the years now I only want to do it Interbay mulch style if possible as it makes planting so easy in spring!

Are you growing your berries as a natural landscape, or are they in beds and rows? What species are you using? Native plants generally don't need any kind of soil improvement, being already adapted to the local soils. Yearly additions of organic matter are appreciated as that's what they'd get in nature, the shed leaves etc of all the plants around them as well as manures from passing wildlife.

For plants, here's some of what I picked up: Red and blue elderberry, salmonberry, thimbleberry, snowberry, a choke cherry tree, cranberry tree, woodland and costal strawberry, a huckleberry (and I think it's the one that's evergreen), red current, and a few others I'm probably forgetting. I got them at the Seattle Native plant sale a few weekends back. I think the only berry I didn't get was a bane berry, as they weren't sure if wildlife could eat them. And then I got a ton of native flower seeds and bulbs. Not a whole lot of planning involved, just mainly checked that they're ok to grow in shade.

I also have a few other things that I picked up here and there... mainly from craigslist, that aren't native (at least I don't think they are, but I like them): longhorn sumak, brown/purple iris bulbs, raspberrry canes, sage, crocosmia.

Thanks for the information, I really appreciate it!

And yes, I pl

I was going to say, yes, I'm just placing them as a natural landscape. I'd like the yard to look like the forest floor basically. I also have some long pieces of a tree trunk that the neighbor cut out of their yard that I'll lay down in the beds/burms so it looks more like the forest, sort of like the nurse logs you mentioned, and get a bunch of moss going on them and on some large rocks I'll add. Probably also get some mushroom plugs and seed the wood I have in there.

Thanks again!