I’ve been dragging my feet over this post. It’s not that the market garden isn’t really interesting and exciting; I’ve never been this hyped for another gardening season. But I want to post about methods that work. Right now my garden is one big experiment.
But here’s what I’m doing in the garden right now: Fresh ideas and plans and unrealistic goals and impractical methods all jumbled up. I just hope that by the end of this year, I’ll be posting about how wonderful this season was and pointing back to this post.
“Hey, y’all, it worked!”
That’s about the best I can hope for, right? It working? Because one thing’s for certain: It won’t be perfect.
So here’s what’s up. My garden last year was this small clay patch.
Ok, well I’ve actually gardened this plot for several years and the soil is getting actually pretty nice.
But this year I want to expand it to about triple the size. Since our power company obligingly buries us with free wood-chips, I decided to use a sort of layering technique for the untilled soil.
Behold Mt. Wood-chip, the inspiration for my current gardening technique.
Next, I put stakes into the ground for the border of the garden, onto which I plan to put cattle panel fencing.
Now I’m putting down cardboard or empty paper feed bags in the entire garden area, being sure to overlap the pieces well. Yes, the cardboard goes directly on the lawn – no plowing! Then I cover them with a thick layer of wood-chips (about four inches).
Notice that the cardboard and wood-chip layers liberally exceeds the fence line. This is so that I (hopefully) won’t have to weed underneath the fence.
Also notice the big red machine. That helps a little bit, too.
Next, I scoop up generous amounts of some “black gold” that our cows generously bestow. I also have some composted horse manure from a nearby farm.
I mark my bed spacing with stakes, aiming for 30 in beds with 12-18 in pathways.
Then I pile the manure on the bed areas. If manure is composted, I put on about a 4 in layer. If it’s fresher manure, the layer is about 3 inches.
Then I layer another 2-3 inches of wood-chips on top of the manure.
For the area that was gardened in previous years, I plan to clear it and skip the cardboard and first layer of wood-chips, simply layering manure and topping it off with wood-chips. I’ll pile lots of wood-chips in the pathways, of course, too.
Also, a couple beds will be topped off with straw instead of the final wood-chip layer. Then the paths will be filled in with wood-chips, instead of the hilled beds I’m forming now. I just want to try a couple ways to see what I like best.
The theory is that the cardboard/paper at smothers the grass and attracts prolific earthworms. Then the wood-chips and manure create basically an elongated compost pile. I pull back the top layer of carbon and sow into the rich compost. As the plant grows, its roots reach down, finger their way past the rotting cardboard, and grow it unbelievable size and productivity. As the wood-chips continue to break down, I mulch again to retain moisture and suppress weeds. That’s the theory.
We’ll see.
