I take care of a community garden, and the number one priority for a large producing garden is finding sources of organic matter. You need one nitrogen rich component, which can be compost, manure, grass clipping, spent barley from a brewery... Having tried all of those, spent barley is by far the best, and it's free if you have a brewery nearby. Then the most important part, mulch. Again tried them all, and the best is wood chips indeed, of a fine caliber. Not huge trunk wood chips. I put, if I can, 15-20 cm of those on top of the soil. And add 10 cm every year. But I do not want raised beds.They're expensive, they rot, and they drain water too much, because they're higher than the ground. After about 3-4 years of wood chips, you don't need anything else, any compost or manure. There's enough humus in the soil to feed everything. For taste, the issue is often too much nitrogen. With compost and wood chips, you never fertilize. And when people use manure they often put way too much. Americans are also big fans of various fertilizers, like all these type of "meals" like alfalfa meal or fish meal or bone meal... You don't need those in a normal garden... Besides, excess nitrogen is THE classic cause of pests. It weakens the plants, making big leaves with thin membranes, that pests will have an easier time chewing and digesting. Overwatering will also affect taste and attract pests. Another "classic" pest magnet is gardens that transition from the "usual" gardening methods (bare soil, fertilizers) to living soil gardening (such as the back to eden method). Again, you need about 3 years for pests to calm down, to have a balance ecosystem. BUT you should plant stuff to help with that : shrubs, perennials, trees. If you have a garden with ONLY veggies, and lawn or wood chips all around, then that's all there is to eat for pests in your garden. Instead you should have perennial flower beds, fruits trees (both to eat and for the birds), that kind of stuff.
This is smart and thrifty with the chip drop . I built a garden this way a few years ago with 20 yards of mulch but do have spots for vegetables but very low to ground just for order as it is a small garden. The yard long beans are fun and tasty. Nice to know about the amaranth! This freely seeds .
I tried raised beds this year but im switching to inground permaculture methods much less costly and we have a thick amount of leaf mulch in our forest area so ill not be buying compost again. N ill be trying to grow from store bought fruits to have a tropical oasis. Zone 8b
I take care of a community garden, and the number one priority for a large producing garden is finding sources of organic matter. You need one nitrogen rich component, which can be compost, manure, grass clipping, spent barley from a brewery... Having tried all of those, spent barley is by far the best, and it's free if you have a brewery nearby. Then the most important part, mulch. Again tried them all, and the best is wood chips indeed, of a fine caliber. Not huge trunk wood chips. I put, if I can, 15-20 cm of those on top of the soil. And add 10 cm every year. But I do not want raised beds.They're expensive, they rot, and they drain water too much, because they're higher than the ground. After about 3-4 years of wood chips, you don't need anything else, any compost or manure. There's enough humus in the soil to feed everything.
For taste, the issue is often too much nitrogen. With compost and wood chips, you never fertilize. And when people use manure they often put way too much. Americans are also big fans of various fertilizers, like all these type of "meals" like alfalfa meal or fish meal or bone meal... You don't need those in a normal garden... Besides, excess nitrogen is THE classic cause of pests. It weakens the plants, making big leaves with thin membranes, that pests will have an easier time chewing and digesting. Overwatering will also affect taste and attract pests.
Another "classic" pest magnet is gardens that transition from the "usual" gardening methods (bare soil, fertilizers) to living soil gardening (such as the back to eden method). Again, you need about 3 years for pests to calm down, to have a balance ecosystem. BUT you should plant stuff to help with that : shrubs, perennials, trees. If you have a garden with ONLY veggies, and lawn or wood chips all around, then that's all there is to eat for pests in your garden. Instead you should have perennial flower beds, fruits trees (both to eat and for the birds), that kind of stuff.
This is smart and thrifty with the chip drop . I built a garden this way a few years ago with 20 yards of mulch but do have spots for vegetables but very low to ground just for order as it is a small garden. The yard long beans are fun and tasty. Nice to know about the amaranth! This freely seeds .
I tried raised beds this year but im switching to inground permaculture methods much less costly and we have a thick amount of leaf mulch in our forest area so ill not be buying compost again. N ill be trying to grow from store bought fruits to have a tropical oasis. Zone 8b
You can waterglass your eggs❤