809 Drown Avenue, Ojai, CA

Description

We bought a 1949 cottage on a 1/3 of an acre with several original fruit trees and 3 raised beds in the front yard as well as a weedy lawn. We had a ponding issue when it rained near the kitchen door and foundation. In the back was a new lawn plus 4 150 year old oak trees. I was hired to make water education films for the State Water Quality Control Board, so we used our yard as a place to film. Working with Surfrider's Paul Herzog, we removed the lawn by sheet mulching, put in a swale to fix the ponding issue, and added rain garden features. We created a permeable pathway to a sitting area. We put in an additional raised bed and more fruit trees, and filled in the rest of the garden with drought tolerant plants. In the back we removed the lawn and allowed the oak leaves to drop onto the dirt, creating natural mulch. We added two raised beds to grow more food, and put in three 55 gallon rain barrels to capture roof runoff.