Creating a new garden with sheet composting, before and after photos
Greens Growing in New Garden
Whenever I remodel a house, my guests inevitably ask me if I took “before” pictures. Of course, I always intend to, but I forget. However, I do have before and after pictures of the new backyard farm.
The photo above is an “after” photo, showing two beds at the bottom of the new garden where salad greens and mustards that I planted about a month ago are now growing well. The seeds wouldn’t have sprouted very well if I just threw them on the new compost, so I made a thin layer of bagged steer manure and peat moss. I was surprised by how well the seeds came up, and the plants are doing very well, even though the hay and straw haven’t had time to decompose yet. Ruth Stout was right – plants (and worms) love alfalfa hay. I hope that next year I’ll have plenty of well-cured home-made compost, so I won’t need to buy any more peat moss.
Photo showing most of the new 700 square foot garden:
Sheet Composting - Basis for New Garden
The photo above shows the sheet composting, built of layers of alfalfa hay, bagged steer manure, and oat straw. I know most people would be appalled, since it looks so messy and not at all the way a backyard garden is “supposed” to look. But I’m quite excited about it. The soil in my backyard was very much abused by previous owners – trucks were parked on the area closest to the alley, and an RV was parked near the house. The clay was so compacted beneath all the heavy vehicles that even grass has a hard time sending down roots.
The new compost will settle down so it will probably only be three or four inches thick by next spring, but it’s a start. And by next spring it will look much more like real soil instead of piles of hay – especially after the beds are covered with new veggies and flowers.
I tried to follow the instructions in the No Work Garden plan, although I couldn’t get as much manure as the writer suggested. I also made my garden larger than he suggests, since I’m trying to work towards food self-sufficiency, (just to see if it’s possible). The new garden takes up about 700 square feet, although the paths take up more of it than I would like.
And, naturally I didn’t make a nice square garden with straight paths, like I was “supposed” to. I basically drew the garden on the ground while I brought in the hay and straw. Some writers say the beds should go north to south, some say west to east – but they all say it doesn’t really matter very much — so I just decided to have fun with it. Besides, my outdoor sculptures should look better sprinkled around a garden with nice curved paths, if I can figure out how to safely waterproof paper mache. (No success yet, but I’m working on it).
The paths are covered with straw, although I would have preferred wood chips (straw is cheaper).
Here’s the “before” picture:
Backyard Before Garden Was Built
You can see in the “before” picture that the grass wasn’t doing very well. In fact, in the part where the RV was parked several years ago, it has been impossible to get anything to grow except a native weed. I’ve tried grass seed mixed with clover, after rototilling and adding lime and fertilizer, and a few of the seeds came up but then withered in a few weeks. If it wasn’t for those weeds (which even the chickens refuse to eat) there would be nothing green at all in that spot. I do hope the sheet compost will add enough good soil on top of the bad soil so I can at least grow a few flowers in that spot.
I planted a bed of garlic a week ago, and it’s coming up nicely. I bought the Combo Pack of seed garlic from Peaceful Farm, so I should have plenty of garlic to share with friends and family next July. The new hedge plants I bought from Lincoln Oakes Nurseries this spring, along with the elderberries I planted several years ago, should be high enough by next fall to screen the neighbor’s old truck and garage.
Next on the list of “things to do”:
The next part of the project will be to build a decent-looking barrier to keep the dogs and chickens from running wild through the garden next spring; to turn part of the grape arbor into a small greenhouse; and to start growing micro greens for my winter salads. I’m getting quite excited about green smoothies, after I learned that many green plants — especially those in the cabbage family — have been shown to reduce the risk of diabetes, which runs in my family.
I’ve never been very good at eating my greens, but I’ve discovered that the green smoothies are actually quite tasty. The micro greens are supposed to have even more of the good stuff than larger leaves, and they’re easy to grow in a sunny window sill. That means I can start my movement towards food self-sufficiency earlier than I planned. So far I haven’t seen many smoothie recipes that use the micro greens, but I’m sure I can substitute for the greens in the new Green Smoothie book that was delivered to my house a few days ago. The seeds should arrive today. I’ll keep you posted.
Another thing I want to do is learn more about growing perennial vegetables. I really like the idea of planting once, and eating for years, but so far the only perennial food plant, other than berries, that I have on the place is rhubarb – which I rarely eat.
Dogs Plus Chickens – Peace, So Far…
The dogs and chickens are doing well together. I was a bit worried about the Australian shepherd, who seemed to be way too interested, and not in a good way. However, it turns out that the retriever is the one who “herds” the chickens around a bit more than I would like, although the chickens don’t seem to mind. The Aussie leaves them alone, fortunately. The chicks get to spend a few hours wandering around in the yard every day. Below, you can see one of the chicks having a conversation with the retriever – I wonder what she was saying…
Chicken and Retriever
Problems I’ve run into so far:
Forget finding anyone to deliver manure here in this small agricultural town. The one fellow in town who advertises that he’ll haul stuff is not interested in hauling smelly stuff. Renting a pickup for $45 so I can go get free manure seems a bit silly, for some reason. The chickens and the alfalfa will have to provide all the nitrogen unless I can find a way to trade in my Hyundai for a pickup – and that’s not likely since I’ve been using it to haul dogs, alfalfa and straw for years. I think I have to keep my little car, whether I want to or not.
Having just one feed store within many miles is also an obstacle. Our local store ran out of non-medicated chick feed this week, and they don’t know when they’ll get more. Since we’ve known for years that feeding antibiotics to livestock is one of the prime reasons for the new drug-resistant human germs, I’m surprised that it’s still legal to sell medicated feed. I guess that shows the power of the pharmaceutical lobby. I may need to make a trip across the mountains this week if I can find another store within a hundred miles that carries the good stuff. One of the primary reasons for having chickens (other than their nitrogen production capabilities) is to have safe eggs to eat. I’ll get them some non-medicated feed, even if I have to order some online.
