Here comes Spring! I can feel it in my bones. No matter that last night was -1.4º at Milkwood Farm… The blossoms as in bud all around. And that means it’s ground-prep time! Bring on the no-dig gardens and the sheet mulching…
Sheet mulching and no-dig gardens have a fair bit of cross-over, and it depends what school of gardening you’re from as to what your preference is, coupled with your conditions.
Making a no-dig bed at a workshop during one of our Sydney permaculture courses.
Myself, I’m more of a no-dig bed gardener. We’ve made too many of these gardens to count, between our farm, permablitzes and workshops. The no dig bed above even has an added worm tower (it’s the blue barrel thing).
No dig gardening was brought to prominence at Milkwood by a sweet little book by Esther Dean: No Dig Gardening and Leaves of Life. We’ve been trying various versions of it ever since.
Not only is this type of gardening a great deal of fun, it’s highly participatory, and fantastic for school gardens. Both Aaron Sorensen and Leonie Shannahan use it extensively in their school garden projects.
Aaron Sorensen + Dan Deighton’s ‘no dig recipe’ in action during a session at Kiama Public School permaculture garden
Kiama Public School kids in the thick of no-dig bed gardening action! Such good fun…
Sheet mulching is a similar premise to no-dig. Smother the undesirable plants, mulch heavily, make a lasagne of carbon and compost, and plant lots. A good burst of energy now for minimal labor further down the line.
Sheet mulching diagram. Origin unknown.
Recently I was reading Sepp Holtzer’s Permaculture, a newly released book describing a landmark Austrian permaculturalist’s farm, which had some funky designs for hugel beds.
Must try out one of these hugel beds in a spare moment… they seem counter intuitive in a drier, erratic climate like ours, but plenty of things that work on Milkwood Farm are counter intuitive, so they may fit right in…
Hugel beds, as outlined in Sepp Holtzer’s book
It will be so interesting to be running no-dig garden bed systems alongside (one the same farm i mean, not right next to) our new intensive market garden. I’m so looking forward to finding a balance of what crops benefit from which sort of system…
Does anyone out there have any stories of running intensive organic beds (ie prepared compost and soil beds) alongside no-dig or sheet mulched beds?
What have you found worked best for different vegetables in each type of approach? Would love some feedback…
