Building A No Dig Garden
By Judy Williams, Fri Dec 9th
The no dig garden is exactly what it describes...a fertilegarden bed with no digging at all. It involves layering clean,organic materials that will literally compost around your plantsas they grow.
The No Dig Garden is built on top of the ground, so you canbuild a garden anywhere. This makes it extremely attractive forthose sites that have poor soil or are weed infested. It's alsoa great method of gardening for those who can't (or don't wantto) dig a garden patch!
The site you choose for your garden must get at least 5 hours ofsunlight a day. Drainage will be good because of the materialsthat will be used in making the garden.
If you are planting over lawn or weeds, mow them to groundlevel. If you are planting on a hard surface, put down somecushioning organic material first (like seaweed or leaves).
To build your no dig garden start with a layer of newspaper (nocolour printing), at least 6mm (1/4 inch) thick. Surround thegarden with some sort of border material. This can be bricks,logs, planks or rocks but should be at least 20-25CM high (8-10inches) to contain the organic material within.
Lay down a layer of lucerne hay leaving no gaps, to a height of10cm (about 4 inches). Layer some good organic fertilizer on topto a height of 20mm (1 inch). This can be just about any sort ofgood quality material like chicken, horse, cow or sheep manure.
Add another thick layer of straw to the garden 150mm (6 inches)and another layer of fertilizer and then top it off with a 100mm(4 inches) of compost.
Water
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