No Dig Garden Bed
I put together a no dig raised garden bed yesterday, that I spent zero dollars on, and I’m gonna run you through the process.
I have this spot in the backyard that is half a semicircle of rocks buried in amongst the grass, so this here. First thing was to pull all the rocks out of the grass, we’re gonna use them later.
And then lay out composts and manures and whatever you can get your hands into the size of your bed. How much depends on how much you can get your hands on, just make sure it’s nice and flat on the top. Homemade slow compost or horse manure is great for this because we won’t have to worry about weeds or pumpkins or capsicums growing out of the compost. If you’ve got stables or government paddocks near you, there is probably manure that they’re dying to get rid of.
Here’s the reason we don’t worry about those plants growing up out of it, your layers of cardboard. This acts as a weed matting for anything growing in the compost, as well as anything of the established plants on the site. Get a hold of it however you can, I got this from work. There will be a local business that takes large orders of stock that is drowning in cardboard boxes that you can get a hold of. Make sure you take any plastic tape off too, because it’s going in the soil. It’s a lot easier to take tape off damp cardboard, I let it sit out and wait for it to rain, but soaking it with the hose works too.
Add more cardboard! Cover all those edges, make sure there isn’t any gaps and you have plenty of overlap! It’s the only thing standing between you and a gardenbed full of pernicious grass rhizomes!
Look at the pile of cardboard you still have left and decide that fuck it, you’ll do too more layers of cardboard. It will all break down eventually, and if you do it right you won’t prevent water reaching the soil underneath.
Shingle the cardboard the opposite way to tiles on a roof. Start in the middle and then overlap on top of that as your work your way out. That way instead of the water running all the way to the edge, it runs under the next bit of cardboard and into the soil. If it doesn’t make sense, let me know and I’ll add a diagram.
Border! It keeps your cardboard down! Keeps your mulch in! I used the rocks I dug out and some old bricks that are in a pile around the corner. Get onto gumtree or craigslist or those facebook buynothing groups, someone’s ALWAYS trying to get rid of old tired landscaping rock. You’ll notice that there’s cardboard sticking out the edges, yeah that’s so the weeds aren’t just gonna come straight up through those rocks. It’ll look daggy for a little bit, but it’ll break down pretty quick, especially if you walk on it.
Mulch! Again for free that someone was trying to get rid of. Apparently councils and tree surgeons are always looking to get rid of it but around here everyone has already figured that out so I got this of someone who ordered too much and was trying to get rid of the excess off their driveway.
And we’re done! Don’t plant straight into it if you used a lot of manure, or if you got a ton of weeds there. Let it settle and give the soil critters time to do their work.
I hope this was helpful, if you have any queries hit me up! Have fun and get your hands dirty!
