Starting and Maintaining a Garden - Lazy Gardening

Category: Starting and Maintaining the Garden | Posted: Fri Feb 13, 2009 6:25 pm

I am a lazy gardener getting lazier all the time. I have favored bed gardens and have had beds of varying sizes through out the yard over the years.

When I first started gardening I always double dug the space burying any sod face down to add nutrients to the soil. Haven't done that in years. I used to be totally organic. The worms and ladybugs do their jobs and I provide the organics. Now I occasionally resort to using Roundup to keep an area clear for moss and groundcovers, and to keep morning glory and blackberries in check (a nasty combination that will take over a yard in short order in this area).

We have always composted the yard clippings right on the beds. I especially like the ivy hedge trimmings that get run-over with the lawn mover until they are nicely chopped. We do that with the fruit tree, and bamboo timmings also. All make a nice cheap mulch. Lawn clippings always go in the recycling barrel, since they tend to restart themselves in the beds.

This last year I planted a vegie garden for the first time in years. Our old dobie, T.M. passed away in October of 1997. T.M., ate most my garden every year. I got tired of planting just for him. He was quite the vegetarian, and fencing the garden didn't seem to slow him down. After 4 years of focusing only on herb, and ornamental beds, and laying bricks for patio areas I was ready to try vegetable gardening again.

I laid out cardboard to kill the weeds, and overlayed it with leaves. Last spring I composted the remaining cardboard that hadn't decomposed and sowed the seeds or poked holes in the cardboard to plant the starts. It was so easy. (Never again will I double dig my beds to start them.)

I also put up the fencing around the gardening space. (We still have dobies and although they aren't as persistant as old T.M. they can eat their weight in fruit and vegies.)

There were some nice surprises with this no dig method. The area where I set out onion sets had the most beautiful stand of volunteer annual poppies. Along the edges of the garden sunflower seeds provided a colorful display and additional bird/squirrel food in late summer.

It was wonderful having a bumper crop of tomatoes, fresh sugar snap peas, kale in the winter, and seeing/eating my favorite scarlet runner beans. There is nothing like having squash blossoms to saute up; and grilling those baby squash on the grill.

If any of the dogs get greedy with my garden again I might be tempted to put up an electric fence to keep them out. T.M. WAS cute standing on his hind legs to reach the last of the runner beans or apples.

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Frank wrote on Fri Feb 13, 2009 10:06 pm:

Great tips here Jewell, I hope it helps with someone starting their garden. Please write more!

Droopy wrote on Sat Feb 14, 2009 9:11 am:

You've posted some very smart tips here. I'm certainly going to check out your blog when the snow's gone and there's gardening to be done.

rea wrote on Wed May 27, 2009 5:47 pm:

Hello fellow Northwester,

This post really inspired me to figure out a way to deal with our overgrown garden without turning everything over. I ended up garden blogging about it...which is something I don't do readily. Thanks again!

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