New Garden Prep

We are prepping the new garden space and there is no rototiller in sight.  The missing  machinery isn’t due to the fact that I am abundant of  muscle  or not so abundant of money (an argument could more easily be made on this one!) or on a “natural” soapbox.  It just makes sense to conserve limited time and energy and allow nature to do the work.  We are using the no-till method of sheet mulching to claim our growing space from wild grasses and blackberries.  This involves a layer of cardboard, manure and mulch along with rain and time.  By spring  we can plant right in the mulch and the grasses and roots underneath the cardboard  will be dissolving and turning into organic material.  I first learned about this method of gardening  watching the Back to Eden documentary and was fascinated how simple and easy it appears.  Now we put it to the test- I will let you know in the spring how it worked.

We prepped five 100 foot rows (3 feet wide, double rows actually) and have 5 more rows to prep for our small orchard- room for 35 trees to begin with.

I also plan to concoct Korean Natural Farming ( I worked with Dr Park, mentioned in this article on KNF) inputs to feed the plants and fight disease while utilizing chickens for insect control, fertilizer and “tilling” (check out Justin Rhodes for incredible chicken information)