this post was submitted on 10 Aug 2023
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Got a load of compost being dropped off this morning, prepping myself to move it as fast as I can so as to not block our driveway. Feels good to be getting the garden and raised beds ready for Spring.
The place we recently moved into has a bit of a garden bed area, but we think (looking at sun charts etc), that it will only be getting good sun for 4~6 months a year. Hopefully we can get something done with that time period as we're pretty keen to doing some gardening :)
Will need to do a few trips soon to buy some compost etc.
I'll make a suggestion - take it or leave it - but I can vouch for it 👍
Go "No Dig", I've been doing this for a while now and can say it is one of the easiest and best ways to garden. To get started you need cardboard (or similar) and either buy in compost or work on making your own. Obviously, no digging is required. Simple as...
I highly recommend spending some time watching Charles Dowdings' youtube channel - he has books too, but the detail on youtube is all you need.
The soil I've developed with this method is so much better than I have ever had before, and I just don't find the need to use any chemicals/fertilizers. We buy very little/no vegetables now! The quality of our veg. has improved using this method too. (Shit, that almost sound like I'm trying to sell you something - I'm not... 😜)
I can vouch for No Dig as well, I've been doing it for about 6-7 years. All you need is compost :) It's just too bad I can never make enough of my own...
Yep, it can be tough. I've got a shredder and quite a few trees which need trimming every year - pretty much anything I can put through the shredder gets turned into compost. Grass clippings get things really going. I've had temperatures above 70C in my compost heaps. Over time, you get so much more leafy green excess that your ability to make more compost increases.
Note: I have, at times, added urine to the mix - it sounds off, but it's actually good (unless you're taking a cocktail of drugs that don't mix well with plants/worms/bugs etc.).
I usually use grass clippings too. My normal issue is getting enough browns. All our trees and shrubs we've put in ourselves, so they're all small that pruning doesn't really create much material. Have to make do with newspapers and cardboard.
I've slowly started to incorporate permaculture concepts to my gardening, so I'm planning to grow more plants for mulching and composting but its a bit of a balancing act in our small section
Huh thats quite interesting. Would it work for beds that already have soil upto the top?
The small amount of compost, 3-5 cm you cover with each year, is pretty much all gone by the following year. So if I understand your question, yes, no dig works on raised beds as well.
A little big of digging on the first setup then I assume? Don't really have any space left over to add any additional.
Don’t overthink it too much, you’d be surprised what you can still grow in suboptimal conditions. I experiment all the time with different plants in different locations to see how well they grow, sometimes bad sometimes good.
Every year I would do many trips to buy bags of compost slowly, I decided this year just to buy it from a landscaping place and get it delivered. It’s a bit more expensive but I can get 1000L at once instead of 40L bags. I still can’t create enough compost myself for the whole garden.
In the peak winter months, the beds unfortunately get no direct sunlight throughout the day :(
But definitely promising what you say :) Hopefully we'll get a bit of a harvest going along this year through spring and summer :)
Leafy stuff still does fine with indirect light, it may grow a bit slower and smaller but it'll still grow. If you're in Auckland or above there's barely a winter anyway :) In fact my outdoors sweet pepper plant is still alive here in Hamilton!
Oh really!? That's actually really good to hear haha. Might need to get started on getting the garden ready a bit faster then :)
Do you have a few peppers? What do you do to them during the winter? I heard they will stay dormant, but not too sure if that would be the case with no sun?
To be honest this is the first time I've left one in all winter, it didn't seem to be suffering so I decided to see how long it would survive. It had a few peppers growing slowly on it still, but I removed them a few weeks ago so it can just concentrate on surviving the winter. I usually would start new chilli and pepper seeds each season. I've heard of people giving them a hard prune back and digging them up and storing indoors over winter, but that's usually in places with really cold winters where the ground freezes.
Just give it a go and see what happens! Worst case is you have to buy a new seedling from the garden centre 🤷♂️
Sounds good :)
I do recall someone mentioning a hard prune back to me sometime ago. Hopefully the Auckland temps mean they won't have any problems :)
How big is your garden? I love the idea of growing my own veges but I tried it this year and couldn't get past my dislike of ants and spiders enough to actually bring much of it indoors.
It’s not very large and kind of oddly shaped, but the previous owner did nothing with it so it was all grass when we moved in. Each year I turn a bit more of it into planting space. I’m at the point I’m thinking of just wood chipping the rest of the lawn next autumn so I can plant anywhere from then on. Also bonus is I won’t have to mow it anymore.
Do you have any outdoor space for pots and planters? You could always just do fresh herbs which is nice to have on hand for cooking,
Yeah, I was gifted a raised garden made from a pallet but it only a week for the local wildlife to move in. Herbs are a good idea though, I should try that to ease back into it.