No till gardening

No-till gardening is a great way to build healthy, living soil filled with micro-organisms and other critters that will help your garden flourish. Although tilling the ground - by machine or hand - is the conventional thing to do it kills micro-organism as well as helpful soil-dwelling critters such as worms and can actually spread weeds especially the ones that propagate with runners.

This Spring I am creating a Learning Garden in my backyard where I will hold workshops on permaculture. In order to do that, I have created a sheet-mulched garden bed on top of what was formerly lawn. 

Here are some pictures of the sheet-mulching process!  This took place on Earth Day 2014.

The order I sheet mulched was:

1. Laying down cardboard with the tape removed and no glossy pictures. This is the weed barrier. I got it nice and wet before beginning. Note: My first layer should have been some kelp meal or other soil amendment and a bit of manure but the cardboard got rained on and so I just left it in place. 

2. Next, I added a 1 inch layer of composted manure.

3. The third layer is 8 inches of straw because straw is so carbon heavy, I added some compost to it to help it break down. 

4. The topsoil layer is next. I put on 1 inch of top soil and about a ½ inch of composted manure. You could skip both and add nice rich, black compost. My compost has not broken down enough to add to this layer. 

5. The very top layer will be more much. Cedar mulch is the prettiest in my opinion but straw is cheaper and I have it in abundance!

The ground before we began. 

Straw makes a great mulch for vegetable gardens. 

Sean posing with the 1350 pounds of straw we picked up from a local farmer!

Wetting the cardboard layer of the sheet mulch. 

Getting some kitchen compost out to add to the garden.  

After the cardboard layer, there is a composted manure layer. 

Sprinkling some kitchen compost on the straw layer

More straw!

After the straw layer I added some topsoil and topped it of with a bit more manure. 

Finished it off with a cedar mulch path. I'll also add some more straw for mulch. 

Garden signs made by Sean! Check out his artist page Lunch Thief. 

Clover

Someone asked me recently what I think of lawns and the answer is, not much. I do have soccer-playing children so I know it's important to have a place for kids to play sports (although children also need trees for climbing and forests for exploring).  However, grass does little to promote biodiversity, mainly because it neither flowers nor seeds. We cut it with our, most often gas -powered, lawn mowers before it can get to those stages. I am an advocate of turning lawns into garden beds. In places where this is not possible, I think people should try to grow ground covers that flower.

One of my favourite plants for this purpose is white Dutch clover. It grows to about 8 inches and then flowers - so it doesn't need to be cut. It attracts pollinators - mainly bees. It is also pretty and your kids can spend hours looking for four leaf clovers. It is not native to south-western Ontario but neither is grass the way we grow it and at least clover plays a positive function in a backyard ecosystem. It is a perennial and is fairly slow to spread (which is a good thing!).

One part of my (former) lawn was dug up in the building of a garden shed last year so I am sowing tons of clover in that area. In the other lawn area, I am trying to promote the growth of clover in amongst the grass. Of course, much of the lawn is in the process of being converted to garden beds. Clover is also useful as a cover crop because when you do eventually cut it, it releases nitrogen into the soil as it decays.

You can get organic clover seeds from Richters Herbs and less expensive non-organic but open-pollinated seeds from Westcoast Seeds. I'll post pictures as my clover lawn grows!

Sheet mulching

Sheet mulching is a great, no-dig way to create a new garden bed. It builds healthy soil that is rich with nutrients and micro-organisms. Roto-tilling and even just  digging up a garden bed kills micro-organisms and other critters. These living beings are critical in creating rich, healthy soil. The best time to sheet mulch is mid to late Autumn so that all the elements of the sheet mulch have had time to break down over Winter before Spring. However, you can sheet mulch in early Spring - or any time - and just cut or dig through the layers to plant if they haven't broken down.

This is a great article about how to sheet mulch: http://www.patternliteracy.com/books/gaias-garden/how-to-the-ultimate-bomb-proof-sheet-mulch. It's written by the author of Gaia's Garden, a book I highly recommend for anyone interested in creating a permaculture-inspired backyard. 

This year, I am extending one of my garden beds using sheet mulching methods for vegetable gardening. I am also creating a naturalized woodland garden bed in my shady front yard, also using sheet-mulching. I will be posting pictures as I create the garden beds so that folks can see the steps involved and the finished product!

Sheet-mulching is relatively easy to do yourself. As Hemenway points out, as long as you have enough cardboard and organic material you can create excellent soil. Cardboard is generally free and abundant on garbage pick-up days (I just found tons of it this morning with a quick drive around my neighbourhood). When using cardboard make sure you take off all tape as well as any glossy coloured stickers.

The city of London has a compost day during which they sell compost at very reasonable prices. This year it is going to be held on Saturday, May 3, 2014. I'll post the details as the date approaches.

If you want help creating a sheet-mulched garden bed email me at earth magic.london@gmail.com.

Hello Spring!

After a long, cold winter, Spring is finally in her way. This is a great time to start helping your garden to wake up. You can prune some of your trees and bushes, pick up garbage or debris that made it's way into your space over the Winter, and get serious about planning what you are going to grow this year. Instead of getting rid of branches and logs, it's a great idea to pile them in a corner of your yard. They will become a habitat (and hiding space) for a wide variety of animals.

Much of the time, when discussing lawn care and gardening, people are focused on keeping wild animals away. However, bio-diveristy is an essential (maybe THE essential) element in living sustainably with the Earth and in turning your backyard into a healthy ecosystem. Creating shelter and hiding spaces for wildlife is an important way to help heal the Earth. It will also help your gardens to flourish. After all, toads love slugs, birds love grubs and insects, snakes love mice, spiders love insects of all kinds, and bats love mosquitos. Work with nature not against it!

Generally, the more wildlife that visit your natural spaces the better. It is a great idea to also give them some sort of water source and even create a patch of dirt for the dust baths that are enjoyed by many animals.

Our task as humans at this point in our existence is to figure out how to live with nature - as an harmonious part of ecosystems. It's not just a task - it's an urgent need. There are many things you can do to help work towards this in your own life - beginning with your garden!