Dig, dig, dig. Wrong, wrong, wrong!

Our veggie garden is about 40 feet by 60 feet; a little smaller than the city lot we lived on at our first house. I wish I knew what I know now when I started the garden. I would have been able to reduce my efforts and create a more productive and easier to manage garden. In 2004, I started my veggie garden the way I had always started a garden: remove the lawn; double-dig the exposed area; add compost and bone meal. Wrong, wrong, wrong! (maybe I should say, instead of "wrong", That there is an easier & better way).

Removing the sod, removes valuable organic material, filled with nutrients, worms and beneficial organisms. Plus it is really hard to do. To follow this method takes hours of back-breaking work BUT there is an easier way...a 100% organic method that is easier and gives better results.

There are a few techniques that are not totally organic which I practice far away from my veggie garden. And no, I'm not talking DDT and a battery of chemicals, I'm talking unbleached paper, that is not glossy or inked. Well, Ok, I'll admit it...sometimes I do use inked paper but it is only in my garden beds. How paranoid do we have to be?
I'm not sure? But if we can create beautiful, great tasting food that is not peppered with chemicals, then why not, especially if it is easier. I know, you are probably saying "get on with it, tell us about this EASY method."

Here it is:

1: Don't remove your lawn! Build your garden on top of your lawn. First cover the lawn with a mulch like grass cuttings, dried leaves, peat moss (make sure you wet it first!). Then cover it with fresh organic compost. What you don't have compost?! We'll get to that in another post, but let say that creating beautiful compost is easy and not expensive.

2: Keep the mulch less than 3 to 4" per layer. So, if you lots of grass cuttings, then use it up in over a few layers, alternating with dried leaves, peat moss or coarsely decomposed garden compost.

3: Cover with a few inches of compost soil.

4: Start planting!

5: use un-inked burlap sacks over the seeded area, laying directly on the soil. Keep the burlap wet. Remove the sacks once the seedlings emerge.

6: Mulch thinly covering all the exposed soil other than the seedlings. Keep the mulch an inch or more from the stem (in most cases) just to make sure the mulch rots the tender stem.

And that's it! It's that simple!