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.