[wearingair]

I am going to do my garden this way next year. The way he explains in the film really makes a lot of sense and the garden looks really good!

http://backtoedenfilm.com/

wearingair

PS: The Q&A gives you the basics on how to start.

 

[stephanie]

that is awesome and so true,in a Buddhist culture it is working with nature not against it. I don't till my raised beds, I did them raised to start because of my elderly mother and because the ground was hard as a rock. but for the last 3 yrs all I do is ad,poo and newspaper to the soils in the boxes. this year on top of the poo I am going to add wood chips as well for the over winter time and come spring I will just rake any chips away from where I want to plant seeds.

 

[Errol]

Stephanie, If you have fall leaves use 3-6 inches of "mulched" leaves, and then add 2-3 inches of wheat straw (old straw if you can get it) but mulched leaves has many benefits. then on top of this add your manure, horse, cow, or whatever. if you add wood chips, don't use walnut, and whatever chips you use let them age for a few months. green wood chips will delete the soil of nitrogen, but aged wood is good. I also use really old, aged black sawdust. It is black and loose as black topsoil. If you can find the aged sawdust, get you some sand (courser the better) and mix 70% aged sawdust with 30% sand. I also use lots of grass clippings which supplies nitrogen.
happy gardening

 

[stephanie]

thanks, getting the materials together to make this happen for next year. leaves are an issue to find don't have trees that shed them where they can be raked up. but have access to horse manure,straw,old hay,wood chips,grass clippings and my soil here is naturally very sandy/rocky(large rocks as big as pick ups) also have a chicken coop. trying to show hubby you don't have to destroy the soil with a tiller to get great results year after year. the wood chips around my area are pine, fir,alder,some maple,and other hard woods, never walnut.Walnut trees are not very plentiful if they are growing it is in some ones yard.

 

[Errol]

I have never owned a tiller. Of course I have always gardened with raised beds just as you. I think thats how so many weeds get to growing is when the weed seed are brought to the surface. Wearingair, that is a great film. I had never watched it before and thank you for sharing. You remember that there was mention that this is something on the order of "sheet composting", which is somewhat on the order of lasgana gardening. Take notice also that you do not plant directly into the wood chips. I also use wood chips in my lasagna beds but they are a year or more old, almost rotten when I use them as a layer in the beds. It is ok to use green woodchips as a mulch on top of the soil, which is what the Eden garden is suggesting. I used also green (fresh) sawdust as a mulch only, but I use aged, rotted, black sawdust as layers. This film is really interesting and much information is shown. thank you again for sharing this
as always, happy digging!

 

[stephanie]

My husband bought one but it has never been used here. I have harvested three 5 gallon buckets of green beans this year from my small raised bed that has never been tilled or turned under just added too. the bed size is 4wx8Lx2h I used hog panels as a place for the beans to climb up and can walk under that to harvest makes it way easier than the traditional poles.I bent the hog panels in an arc between 2 of the raised beds.that way peas can grow up one side and beans the other and I can also cover it with plastic and create a green house. the green house Idea came to me this year with it.

 

[Errol]

Stephaine, that is a great idea!! I never thought of bending them into an arc that way. I just may try that next yr., and the plastic to convert into a green house is awsome idea. See, who says an "ole dog" like me can't learn new tricks!!

 

[stephanie]

I am always learning a new trick, those panels are strong enough to hang stuff from too. vines love them kinda nice to stand under the green beans and just pull them off.

 

[dhiman007]

I am always learning a new trick, those panels are strong enough to hang stuff from too. vines love them kinda nice to stand under the green beans and just pull them off.

I appreciate you always learning a new trick.

 

[Shannon]

The Back to Eden video was so good! Thanks for sharing it. It gave me a lot of "ah haaaa" moments.

 

[stephanie]

The Back to Eden video was so good! Thanks for sharing it. It gave me a lot of "ah haaaa" moments.

I had a ton of ah haaaa moments when watching it too, it just makes sense, and it makes even more sense to me now that we are clearing space for pasture and removing a ton of trees along our property line and I can so see the difference in the soil out there versus the soil in places that had been cleared for years and stripped down to almost hard pan. I have started in the last 2 years to add as much wood chip and poo as possible with out doing any tilling to all my flower beds,garden areas and around the fruit trees/shrubs. Those areas have improved a great deal but still need help, so each year they get a new layer or two of goodness. And each year it those places produce more and look healthier and have fewer bad bugs and disease.