EASY No Dig Garden Prep

The EASIEST way to prepare a garden bed for planting into next Spring is to sheet mulch it now. 

                       
                                              

What is sheet mulching?  It is a technique used by gardeners to prepare garden beds without having to dig or till their soil first.  It involves smothering your grass, or whatever weeds you have, with cardboard or thick layers of newspaper, and then topping that off with compost or lawn clippings.  Over time, the cardboard breaks down into the soil, and the grass is effectively killed.

Step-by-step instructions:

1. Figure out where you want your garden space to be in the Spring
2. Lay down cardboard or several layers of newspaper on top of the new garden space. It is important that you overlap your pieces so that no grass or any plant material is sticking up.  You are utilizing the cardboard/newspaper to smother light out from any unwanted plants - so make sure there is no green sticking through.
3. You usually need to weigh down the cardboard/newspaper.  Some people use stones or pieces of wood. Other folks water the cardboard/newspaper heavily to keep pieces from flying away.
4. Next you layer something nutritious for your plants on top of the cardboard.  This is usually compost, but it can be uncomposted kitchen scraps, grass clippings, or any other kind of green material that is capable of decomposing quickly.  I have a friend who works at a sprout farm and he used partially-rotted sprouts for his layer - turned out great.  The green matter or compost that you lay down will provide nutrition for the soil and for your plants in the Spring.  This layer needs to be at least 3-4 inches thick.
5. Next you layer something "brown" on top. You can use straw, hay, wood chips, or any dead, dry material as a top dressing.  The purpose of this layer is to protect the bottom layers.  The top layer of mulch will trap moisture, keep soil from drying out and blowing away, and keep new weed seeds from landing on your bed and germinating. This layer needs to be 5-6 inches thick.

That's it!  To sum up: its a smothering layer (cardboard/newspaper), a green nutritious layer (compost/kitchen scraps), and a brown protective layer (straw/wood mulch).  Some people put the green nutritious layer below the smothering layer.  Other folks add lots of amendments and soils in with the green nutritious layer.  There are many ways to do it, depending on your soil conditions and preferences.

You just leave your bed sit over the Winter.  When Spring arrives, your cardboard/newspaper layer and your green layer will be almost completely composted and ready for Spring plants.  You just plant directly into the top brown layer.
                                         

Here is a video of one lady sheet mulching in her yard:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2K_uZnjRKk

Here is a video of Permaculture founder Bill Mollison sheet mulching to plant potatoes (the sound quality is bad):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pOF0kPAKfM

Giant Sweet Potato Harvest!

RTCO’s resident gardener Alec Sutliff has stumbled upon a method for growing giant sweet potatoes!  This is our harvest from RTCO’s garden – dug up yesterday.

 

 

 

Sweet Potatoes are heat lovers, and this summer we had a hot one!  Alec says loose soil, heat, and regular watering must be the key to growing these giant roots.  Near the beginning of Summer, Alec put loose bagged soil into a raised bed.  He started the sweet potato slips in his own basement.  He planted the slips in the raised bed, watered them about every three days all summer, and yesterday he pulled these monsters out of the ground.  Below is a picture of the raised bed they were dug out of.  As you can see, the box is raised higher than the rest of the bed – the bed is 6 inches from the ground, the sweet potato box is 18 inches from the ground.  Alec’s speculation on the unusual size of the potatoes is the extra foot of height allowed the soil to temperature in the box to raise and retain extra heat throughout the summer.  Loose hot soil results in large potatoes!

 

 

 

The sweet potatoes we see in the grocery store are usually grown in southern climates that have very hot growing seasons and sandy soils – such as North Carolina and Mississippi.  Many people mistake sweet potatoes for yams, but they are actually not in the same family as yams.  They are not even in the same family as potatoes.  Sweet potato plants are in the same family as morning glories (their flowers look like morning glory flowers).  They are grown all over the world, and they clearly do fine in Ohio’s hot summers.

Cool Weather Crops

What edible crops can you grow during the Fall and Winter seasons?  There are so many, and its still not too late to plant.

 

Root Vegetables: Radishes, Beets, Turnips, Carrots, Parsnips

All love the cool, wet weather of Fall.  You can plant these vegetables from seed now and let them get well-established before there are many hard freezes.  Root veggies will hold up during mild freezes.  You can cover them with straw or other mulch after they are established to protect them from hard freezes.  Some varieties even stand up to hard freezes all Winter long.  I love having root veggies in my garden because I can harvest them throughout the Winter when I want them - the ground soil will preserve them for you.  Also, all the root veggies listed above have edible leaves, as well, except Carrots.  They are delicious in salads and stir-fries.

  

Leafy Greens: Kale, Brussels Sprouts, Collards, Cabbage, Chard, Lettuces, Spinach, Chicories, Mache (aka Corn Salad)

Hardy greens usually stand up the best to hard Winters.  You can straw mulch these guys, as well, if you want to pick on them even during the coldest months.  Many varieties of Kale and Mache, especially, stay vibrant green when everything else around is dead and frozen.  Lettuces, Spinach, and other tender leaves are much less likely to withstand hard freezes, but they are fast growers in the Fall and you can eat on them up until multiple hard freezes kill them back.  Keep your vitamin intake up during the Winter by planting all these leafy greens now.

Scallions are a great Fall crop - they grow fast, love the cool Fall weather, and taste great in so many dishes.

  

Garlic is a crop that is harvest in the middle of Summer, but it is planting now.  If you want to grow delicious, strong flavored garlic, plant cloves now.  Many people even plant cloves they've bought from the grocery store.  Give them about 6 inches of space and plant them in a location that you can ignore between now and next July (when its time to harvest).  Many people mulch their garlic now to keep it from sprouting too much before hard Winter freezes kill the sprouts back.  Then in the Spring, they pull the mulch back and allow the garlic sprouts to pop up and grow tall.