Starting a Garden

If you have a patch of grass or weeds that you want to turn into a garden, here’s a simple and easy way to do it. Start in the fall if you can, but almost any time of year is OK. (The photo is of a garden in a traffic circle that I started one June using this approach: it didn’t look great that summer, but in the fall I planted lots of bulbs, and the next spring it was glorious.)

1. Begin by mowing the existing plants as low to the ground as you easily can.

2. Put down a layer of something paper-based, which will darken the soil and inhibit weeds. This can be 2-6 layers of newspaper, a layer of cardboard, planters’ paper, paper bags, etc. Overlap the edges so you can’t see the ground anywhere. (If you’re using newspaper, choose a day that isn’t windy. You may also want to hold down the paper with little rocks or spray it with water to make it more manageable.) Don’t worry about colored inks, but don’t use glossy paper of any sort.

3. Add at least 4” of good compost, and 8-10” if you can. (Weeds generally won’t grow if they are more than 4” below the soil surface.) For this purpose I recommend purchasing bulk compost, since large-scale composting processes kill many more weed seeds than is possible in a home composting arrangement. Besides, you’ll need a lot of compost!

4. Let the garden sit for two months, or preferably over the winter. The previous plants will die and decay into the soil. (Once I went ahead and started planting after only two weeks, and that worked OK, but it wasn’t ideal.)

5. Come spring, plant directly into the compost. Do not turn the soil – that would bring weed seeds up from the lower level, which is not your goal. Lots of earthworms will be attracted to the compost, and they will loosen the soil for you. If you are planting seeds, you don’t need to touch the lower levels at all. If you are planting a perennial plant, or a tree or shrub, you do need to create a planting hole that goes into the deeper level of the soil. Remove any stones you come across, but don’t worry about removing stones between planting holes. Stones don’t actually do plants any harm, and if you have a good thick layer of compost on top that’s where most of the roots will be anyway. The deep roots can work around stones – as long as you don’t put a plant right on top of a big stone.

Given all the compost you’re adding, the result will be something of a raised bed. You can make this official by building a frame from recycled plastic lumber or something else, or you can just mound the compost and keep a natural look. It’s up to you.

If you really want to rototill to begin with, before step #2, that’s OK. But don’t rototill your garden every year – it’s terribly destructive to the soil communities. And it’s generally not necessary at all. The only exception is if your soil is very compacted. Is it very firm beneath your feet? Does it grow lots of plantains? If so, you might want to dig or rototill it once before adding the paper and compost. But only once. And you don’t have to.

In future years, whether to dig the garden is a matter of what you’re planting there. If you plant perennials, congratulations – no more digging! If you want to grow carrots and beets and other root crops, then you should dig deeply, add compost deep down, get compulsive about removing pebbles, and leave the soil as light and fluffy as you can make it. If you are growing veggies other than root crops, you have three options:

1. Double dig. Remove the top layer (6-8”) from a roughly 2’ x 2’ square of your garden and set it aside. Loosen the next 8-12” of soil, remove rocks, and add some compost while you’re down there. Go on to the next 2’ x 2’ square. Put its top layer in the hole remaining in the first square. Wash rinse repeat, until you’re ready to put the first top layer into the final hole. This is labor intensive, obviously, but your veggie garden will flourish.

2. Loosen with a pitchfork. Every spring, some day when the soil is not soggy from rain or snowmelt, go out to the garden with your pitchfork and use it to systematically loosen the top 8” or so of the soil. The goal here is not so much to turn the soil over, though some mixing will happen. Instead the goal is to open up the soil, break up clumps, make passages for air and water, and the leave the texture soft and friable. During the growing season, mulch with salt marsh hay or something else that will break down nicely. During the winter, do the same with leaves. This will add nutrients to the soil and encourage earthworm populations, which will gradually loosen the deep soil that you aren’t touching.

3. Make raised beds and never never never put a foot on them. The big reason you need to dig is soil compaction, and if you don’t use your weight to compact the soil you will have a lot less work to do. As the seasons go by, add compost and various mulches to the beds, and let them take care of themselves. Your crops may or may not be as abundant as if you were digging the bed occasionally, and if you want to some year you can go to approach #1 or 2. But if you start with good compost, never put weight on it, and add mulches, you can have a garden without digging.

Next page: Enhancing Your Soil