Learn how to transformed unused space (a bit of lawn, an old gravel pathway or even a concrete or paved area) in to a 'no-dig' vegetable garden. It is low cost, highly productive & fast!
Vegetable gardens can be in any position that receives 6 hours of sun or more a day. You can use almost anything organic to build a no-dig garden; the more diverse the materials the better. Use things you have already got in the garden & scrounge others locally.
The trick is to place the ingredients in layers, alternating between brown (or carbon-based layers) and green (or nitrogen-rich layers). Brown layers include material such as straw, wood chips, sawdust, wet newspapers, rotting timbers and leaf litter. Green layers include manures, animal bedding material, seed-free weeds, worm castings, compost and vegetable scraps. The brown layers should be thicker than the green layers, and the bed is made a bit like a giant lasagne, watering each layer as you go.
01:20 How to do it - Start with the bulkier material and work your way up to the finer material. - Include some wood ash and soil to help sweeten and activate the soil. - The no-dig garden will heat up & start to break down, but you can keep adding layers over time. 05:00 - Leave it for a couple of weeks to settle, but if you’re impatient, sow a couple of quick leafy crops into the top. - Water in well.
Tips - This bed is never dug over, and any weedy manures or fresh manures should be lower down in the pile so that the weeds don’t germinate easily, and they have time to rot down before plant’s roots get to them. - Avoid weedy runners like couch, or perennial bulbs like oxalis unless you drown them first. - It is a rich mix, so it is best to avoid root crops in the first season.
This method was made famous by Australian gardening legend Esther Deans in Sydney in the 1970s.
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