Garden Beginnings

When we moved there was nothing to sustain any kind of vegetable garden all soil was hard and lifeless, with no organic matter.

We needed to create more garden space. We decided to go with a 'no dig' approach to our first two created gardens, they were put in to the east side of the block near the shed. This type of garden appeals to me as they are generally low maintenance and create very healthy soil over time.

We covered the gound with sheets of soaked newspaper about 10 pages thick, the size of the bed about 1.5m x 3 m. plenty of blood and bone then 3-4 layers of horse poo and hay. The beds are then left to rest and watered well for a few months and it magically all turns to soil, with a happy amount of worms. As the seasons move by all that is needed between crops is add more layers of rotted poo or compost and hay.
In theory you should wait the few months to mature the garden, but I was impatient so I planted straight out with zuchinni seedlings with a little compost and they took off. 2 plants survived and that was more than enough to the both of us.

The gardens remain fertile, it is about time to add more layers, to keep the worms happy. This is a very easy way of creating a happy garden when you start with rubbish compacted soil.