Im getting rolling eyes about my garden.

 

Hello,

Id like to hear from you about my garden I put in.  The neighbors are
apparently baffled by it. I'm not 100 % sure either .  I will give you a
brief description and why I did this. And criticism will be greatly
appreciated.  This is the first garden I've put in in about 10 years.  I
gave up because I bought horse manure and the weeds from it overran my
garden year after year and I couldn't kill them off. Primarily morning
glories that choked my plants and made a jungle .  I  became motivated by
the No work garden book by Ruth Stout.

The garden is  30 by 16.  Its  tilled horse manure at least 15 years old.  I
put 4 bales of hay on it a month ago. And spread it around . 3 lbs of
10-10-10 fertilizer and made 4 rows of garden fabric 4 feet wide.  And laid
them with two inches  spaces between them.  And I have  treated timbers
covering every edge of the fabric.  So it wont move or blow away.

I pick up one side of the fabric , spread the hay  aside. and put plants in
. Then cut a hole in the fabric so the plants will fit through  the fabric.
.  Wherever I want the plants at. Then I put the fabric back down and the
timbers to hold it.

It is a bit time consuming to do this.  To get the plants in and the holes
cut in the right place.  But weed control  has been a major issue here.
Every year.

The fabric is for weed control. The hay is there to turn to mulch for next
year. And was my original plan for weed control.  I didn't know it didn't
work on morning glories until I got Ruth Stouts later books.   So I added
the fabric.

I bought two flats of plants

The Rows are east to west.

Row 1 is north.

Row 1 has 36 corn plants about 1 foot apart in three rows.    And 3 tomato
plants 3 foot apart centered.

Row 2 has 10 tomato plants about 3 foot apart

On row 3. I cut the fabric lengthwise down the middle and put in 6 eggplants
,  2 foot apart. And four pepper plants about 2 foot apart.

Outside the fabric rows . Far south.   In the soil I put in about 40 onion
sets.  And I have a 2 foot section about 25 feet long left over.

And the 2 inch spaces between the rows  for other  plants.  I'm not sure
what to put in there but I'm out of plants. I have Beet , broccoli, and
carrot seeds I could put in there.  I've got sugar, snow peas and provider
bean seeds too.

The rest of the flats. and the partial sun items  lettuce, celery, more
onion sets I put in another small rough soil plot by the house as it gets
partial sun.

I did the fabric technique three years in a row and it works pretty good.
But not with the hay under it. I've not ever used hay before.  This is my
main concern.  Will the hay do something bad sitting there all year under
the garden fabric. Or am I ok.

Id really like to have a continuous mulch garden and put on 6 inches of hay
every fall.  And let it sit and compact through the winter.

And I was going to just cover the plot for the year and kill everything off
and start next year.

But I came up with this idea.

I haven't left much out.

Anything wrong with what I did.

Thanks

Diesel.

 

None4U wrote:

Since you go on to use inches this is probably in feet.  Perhaps you should
recall that the USA is about the only country that still uses such primitive
measures.  I thought it was because they have 12 fingers and toes but
apparently polydactyly isn't so common so there is some other reason.



It is a wonder there is anything left after that long.  It must be chilly
around there.

I put 4 bales of hay on it a month ago. And spread it around .

I take it this fabric is porous?

So where do you walk?  In the 2in slot?  You should leave a path for you and
your barrow otherwise you will compact the soil.



Not ideal.  North-south is better.  The sunward sides of the E-W rows will
get much more sun than the pole side.  If you run them N-S both sides get
the same, of course in the antipodes we run them S-N.


Is this sunward or poleward?  I am guessing poleward so if the tall stuff is
at that end it is OK.



I don't know your climate so I am not sure about planting onions, peas and
broccoli with the summer veges.  I would grow these through winter but my
summer is very hot and my winter is cool but does not have snow or ice.
Somebody who is more familiar with your region would advise better.


If the fabric allows air and water to penetrate there shouldn't be a
problem.


I don't see anything really bad about what you have done, there are a couple
of areas to improve.  It might have been quicker and cheaper to let all the
weeds come up, nuke them and then use mulch for weed supression but since
you have bought the fabric you may as well use it.

I am dying to know what the neighbours said.

David

 



What sticks out to me is the 4 bales of straw which have a carbon to
nitrogen ratio of 50 to 100. Four bales probably weigh about 240 lbs
(109 kg) probably need a pound of 10-X-X to give a C/N ratio of 25, to
keep the microbes from sucking up all the available N in consuming the
straw's C. This disregards any N that may be in the 15 year old horse
manure. You could also use 30 gal. of fish emulsion, or 4 lbs chicken
manure, or 7 lbs of horse manure.
--
- Billy
"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the
merger of state and corporate power." - Benito Mussolini.

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Zinn/HZinn_page.html

 



    Feet.

     The US government has a vested interest to keep people stupid.


     Yup.

    The fabric is 4 feet wide.  Except for the corn  the plants are in the
middle.  Theres four feet between the rows. You just walk on the fabric


    Oh ,

     Sunward,  and the tall stuff is north.

   Ohio,  growing season is  May to Oct.  Snow is in Dec to April.  Were
just past frost risk now.

I would grow these through winter but my

    The ground and  Everything freezes  .    Im not familiar with any winter
gardening techniques  here.  Everyone plows .



     It does

 The neighbors said it looked like crap and wont grow anything through the
hay.  With the hay laying around.   It looks pretty nice now with the fabric
on it.



   Before I put the fabric on it.   I put 2 lbs of 10-10-10 on it.  Now that
you mentioned  fish emulsion. I have a gallon of concentrated fish emulsion
with no use.  Im going to put that on there to get rid of it. The hay was
240 lbs.  The fabric does flow water and air.

Can I keep putting hay on it every fall for mulch.  And get good soil after
a couple years.

 



Just smile sweetly at them and ignore them.


Yes.  Read up on feeding earth worms and how to build up the number of
earthworms.  What is best for earthworms, is best for your soil.