Rural Missouri - March 2011 - (Page 16)
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by John Bruce mailbag@ruralmissouri.coop
ay goodbye to tilling, digging and costly garden chemicals. Say hello to no-dig gardening, a proven way to grow vegetables and flowers naturally — and with less work. No-dig gardeners realize that worms, bugs and microbes are necessary for nutrients and prevention of disease. Plants deliver part of the carbon energy they produce into the soil. Microbes convert this energy into organic materials and minerals that plants need. The rationale for traditional row gardening and tilling is to remove weeds, loosen and aerate the soil and bury organic matter. Tilling can remove existing weeds, but it almost always brings dormant weed seeds to the surface where they can germinate. When organic materials are moved deeper, less oxygen is available for converting the materials into nutrients. Then the nutrients need to be replaced. Traditional gardeners usually rely on synthetic fertilizers to amend the soil and replace the lost nutrients. No-dig gardening lets nature do the work. One strategy is first to remove all weeds and grass from a garden area. Materials such as rotten manure, decayed sawdust or compost go straight on the surface as a layer of mulch 2 to 6 inches deep. Worms, beneficial bugs and microbes get busy beefing up the soil. They create a healthy habitat for roots to flourish once seeds begin to sprout. Celebrated no-dig gardening author Patricia Lanza bubbles over with enthusiasm when she explains why gardeners should consider the shovelfree approach. “As an old hand at this game of gardening, I remember my own ‘AHHHH!’ moment when I put all the pieces together that allowed me to make wonderful growing spaces without the use of power tools or purchased material,” Lanza says. “Whether you choose to layer, grid, mulch or straw bale, you can’t go wrong. Just do it!” Lanza says with no-dig methods, there’s less fuss over the planting area. Free organic material, such as grass clippings and compost, are used in layers on top of a newspaper ground cover. Don’t cut through the paper before planting. First, Lanza recommends picking a spot and marking it (a garden should receive six to eight hours of sunlight and not be subject to strong wind). Cover the area with thick layers of wet newspapers, overlapped. Cover the paper with several inches each of peat moss, compost, grass clippings, chipped leaves, humus, spoiled hay, seaweed, aged manure or whatever organic material is handy. Water the layers of organic material until they
feel like a squeezed-out sponge. Pull the layers back to the paper. Place the plants on the paper and pull the organic material back around the plant roots. Press the soil to push out the air and water. Try to use one part nitrogen-rich material (grass clippings, compost or manure) to four parts carbon-rich material (chopped leaves, peat moss, straw, spoiled hay or peat humus) for a perfect mix. More important is to use what is readily available and free, Lanza says. A similar no-dig method is sheet mulching. Newspaper or cardboard is spread out on the garden area and topped with landscape mulch. Again, weeds should be removed first if there’s no time to let them die out and decay under a new blanket of sheet mulch. Sheet mulch blocks daylight and suffocates existing grass and weeds that, over time, decompose (before the actual sheets do) to become part of the biosphere that garden plants need to thrive. Ideally, the newspaper or cardboard should be spread out before a heavy rain, but otherwise a garden hose can do what’s necessary to keep the sheet thoroughly wet. When ready to plant, use a hand shovel to cut out holes for planting seeds or seedlings. Straw-bale gardening is a simple twist to the nodig method. As with other types of no-dig gardening, straw-bale gardening requires no herbicides, insecticides or fungicides. A wide variety of vegetables (except top-heavy ones such as corn), fruits and flowers can be planted in conditioned straw bales. On the minus side, the bales eventually need to be replaced, and the aesthetics might not be suitable for yards in some areas, such as suburban subdivisions. Straw baled in plastic twine is preferable to bales with sisal twine or wire because the plastic does not decompose or rust. Straw that has begun to decompose is ideal, since it shortens the conditioning time that fresh straw needs. The bales need to be placed over a wire mesh or other barrier to prevent pests such as moles from pilfering the plants. It is important to place the bale so that the twine runs parallel (around the sides of the bale) to the surface (usually ground) and that the twine does not come in contact with the surface to help preserve the bale’s shape. Thoroughly watering the bale and adding a high-nitrogen fertilizer on top begins the conditioning process, lasting five to seven days. Keeping the straw bale moist is a must. A layer of nursery mix, garden soil or compost on top creates a planting medium for seedlings and seeds. One bale can host a pair of tomato plants, a half-dozen cucumber plants or a dozen bean plants. Raised-bed gardening — essentially planting in containers made of wood or masonry and filled with compost or manufactured soils — has been in
practice for centuries. Like other no-dig approaches, raised-bed gardening keeps the soil aerated, allows for more crops to grow in less space, reduces weeding and requires less fertilizer than traditional row gardens. Four-foot-wide raised-beds put the working space within easy reach from both sides for most gardeners, but beds can be narrower for children to help. Length can vary according to preference. Raised beds can be elevated on tables or other platforms to ease accessibility for folks who find it uncomfortable to stoop or kneel. Square-foot gardening is a spin on the raised-bed method. A typical square-foot garden consists of a framed 4-foot-square raised bed, divided into 16, 1-foot squares — ideal for limited space. Wooden strips divide the bed into a grid that provides plants in each square enough growing room as well as separation. Each section is planted with a different crop. The number of seeds or seedlings per square varies according to plant size. Another limited-space, no-dig alternative is a hanging (upside-down) garden. Five-gallon buckets are good for tomatoes and cucumbers. Essentially it involves drilling a 2-inch hole in the bottom, placing a slit coffee filter over the hole, inserting an inverted seedling through the slit (so the root ball faces up), filling the bucket with a compost-soil mixture and hanging the bucket from a tall post in a sunny spot. Low-growing spices or flowers can go in the top of the bucket. Optionally, kits are sold for upside-down gardening. No-dig gardening is hailed by many as the foundation of “permaculture,” an alternative agriculture movement. Permaculture is believed to be rooted in a century-old concept called “permanent agriculture,” which contends that conventional methods destroy vast quantities of topsoil and requires large amounts of oil for all the equipment, fertilizers, pesticides and other chemicals. In his book, “Landscaping with Fruit,” no-dig gardening expert Lee Reich unravels permaculture. “Luscious landscaping with fruiting trees, shrubs and vines is part of a broader system of ecological design known as permaculture, developed by University of Tasmania lecturer Bill Mollison and his student, David Holmgren, in the 1970s. Permaculture seeks to integrate not only fruits and other edibles into a site plan, but also other resources and their cycles.” Permaculture and, on a smaller scale, no-dig gardening, attempt to mimic nature and create a sustainable landscape — with less sweat. John Bruce is a professional writer who gardens in Columbia, S.C.
NO-DIG GARDEN
STRAW BALE GARDEN
RAISED BED GARDEN
photo courtesy of John Bruce
photo courtesy of Cleveland Botanical Garden
photo courtesy of B. Blechmann
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Rural Missouri - March 2011
Rural Missouri - March 2011
Contents
Comments
Columns
Docent of the Walking Cane Dulcimer
Out of the Way Eats
Mail Bag
The No-Dig (And Less Sweat) Gardening Alternative
Grow a Delicious Landscape
A Recycled Craft
Hearth and Home
News Briefs
The Gainesville Gunner
Marketplace
Around Missouri
Top Apps for Rural Missourians
Neighbors
Just4Kids
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