Re: Garden Geeks thread
I have gardened in the city, suburban gardens- a few.
I have done the dig and the no dig and regularly 'need' to start another garden. Couple of comments-
Do not use railroad ties or any sort of pressure treated wood for food producing beds. They have chemicals in them that are nasty.
If you are in a place with a lot of roots using raised beds can provide wonderful nutrients for the trees. We had a maple that was in the corner of the yard. We put in raised beds and a compost heap 20+ feet away. As the tree grew we had an awful time with roots. We ended up cutting the tree down because it kept breaking off. Hoping this solves the problem.
Put in a thick plastic bottom with some perforation in the bottom of the compost. It won't solve that completely but it helps a bit.
For no dig you can do the cardboard straight on the grass. Works better if you mow the area down to the ground, put a layer of leaves/newspaper or other loose stuff, then cardboard. If you look up organic gardening there are thousands of articles about how to do this. You can also put down shredded leaves, black plastic over the top this heads things up and speeds the breakdown.
They sell all sorts of stuff to make raised beds. You can go low tech/low effort- Long boards (not ply wood, pressure treated or otherwise chemically treated wood) put wood stakes or other stakes to hold it up- you need to alternate inside and outside. Fill with dirt/compost. leaves, etc. We tried the L brackets but this actually worked best for us.
One of the best ones I had seen was doing the raised bed, dropping in large unopened bags of soil so it covered grass underneath. Cut open tops, poke some holes in the bottom of bag and then plant. the worms come in through the holes. It kills the grass underneath and at the end of the season you just pull out the plastic bags, leaving soil behind.
COmpost doesn't have to be big. When we were in the city we had a couple of very narrow ones where we could fit them.
You can grow just about anything in containers. Tomatoes are tropical plants and love the heat of the container. Lettuce does not like heat so does better if shaded.
You can companion plant- basil and tomatoes love each other and enhance growth. THere are a bunch of articles on that too. There are some things that do not like each other
Clay is nasty. We have that. organic matter. Lots of it
Originally posted by dxmnkd316
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I have done the dig and the no dig and regularly 'need' to start another garden. Couple of comments-
Do not use railroad ties or any sort of pressure treated wood for food producing beds. They have chemicals in them that are nasty.
If you are in a place with a lot of roots using raised beds can provide wonderful nutrients for the trees. We had a maple that was in the corner of the yard. We put in raised beds and a compost heap 20+ feet away. As the tree grew we had an awful time with roots. We ended up cutting the tree down because it kept breaking off. Hoping this solves the problem.
Put in a thick plastic bottom with some perforation in the bottom of the compost. It won't solve that completely but it helps a bit.
For no dig you can do the cardboard straight on the grass. Works better if you mow the area down to the ground, put a layer of leaves/newspaper or other loose stuff, then cardboard. If you look up organic gardening there are thousands of articles about how to do this. You can also put down shredded leaves, black plastic over the top this heads things up and speeds the breakdown.
They sell all sorts of stuff to make raised beds. You can go low tech/low effort- Long boards (not ply wood, pressure treated or otherwise chemically treated wood) put wood stakes or other stakes to hold it up- you need to alternate inside and outside. Fill with dirt/compost. leaves, etc. We tried the L brackets but this actually worked best for us.
One of the best ones I had seen was doing the raised bed, dropping in large unopened bags of soil so it covered grass underneath. Cut open tops, poke some holes in the bottom of bag and then plant. the worms come in through the holes. It kills the grass underneath and at the end of the season you just pull out the plastic bags, leaving soil behind.
COmpost doesn't have to be big. When we were in the city we had a couple of very narrow ones where we could fit them.
You can grow just about anything in containers. Tomatoes are tropical plants and love the heat of the container. Lettuce does not like heat so does better if shaded.
You can companion plant- basil and tomatoes love each other and enhance growth. THere are a bunch of articles on that too. There are some things that do not like each other
Clay is nasty. We have that. organic matter. Lots of it
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