Mulchin’ It Up Baby, Back To Eden Style!

Looky what Ma and I found!  That is a pickup load of  tree mulch that we got for a big ol’ whoppin $5 and change. We went back and got another one today and decided to get to work on setting up a bit of a Back To Eden test.

I got a little ahead of myself and didn’t get many good before shots but I did catch her working.  She can do anything she sets her mind to and she’s not afraid to get in there get with it.

Here is the one good before shot, it’s of the kiwi/gourd arch before we put paper or mulch down.  I know those kiwi vines have had a hard last few weeks with all the freezes and cold weather.  I hope they will be more presentable next time you see a shot of them.  I planted 4 gourd plants in these beds this evening, hopefully they will take off as well.

I did my fair share too, getting this stuff moved was a chore.  Basically what we are doing is emulating the forest floor, same as when we built our no till veggie garden. We are laying down a thick layer of newspaper right on top of the grass to starve it of light and feed the beneficial soil organisms.  Earthworms love paper.

Here is the contorted jujube with newspaper laid out.  She is wetting it down so the wind won’t blow it all over the place, it also serves to get a little water in the system.

Here are the peaches about half way into the process. They already had a pretty thick layer of mulch. I ought to have some seriously sweet soil around them next year.  One of the main reasons we go to all this trouble is that in the long run this is going to be much less work.  We are letting nature do it’s thing, see the critters in the soil will till for you but they don’t like chemicals.  We as people shouldn’t either but for whatever reason we do. Go figure.

Here is that same area after we had finished cleaning up the blackberries and mulching the entire area.  We are on the look out for some companion plants for the peaches.  Most notably some Comfrey (maybe in containers maybe not.)  I have some red currants that will likely be happy between the blackberries and the peaches.

Here is the kiwi arch, all done up.  We left the paper hangin’ out because we plan to bring more mulch in and join most all of these areas in and we thought that if we left it out we could put the next round of paper right on top. That way we have a little overlap to seal that grass off from the sun.

The next area of interest was alongside the veggie garden.  That grass is coming right along and threatening to encroach on the veg.  We can’t have that, so we went to work, a thick layer of much will surely keep it at bay and build beautiful soil in the process.

I was gonna pull my britches up but she snapped this before I got a chance to.  This was almost the last load we hauled today.  We’re going to go back and get more loads of this mulch over the next few days and we’ll surely keep up better with the pics than we did with this post. the thing is, I think we’ve captured enough to give you a really good idea of what it is we are doing and if you have any idea of things we can do to make it better please pipe up, leave a comment and let us know.  If you have questions leave those too and we’ll see if we know enough to help.  We’re new at this remember.

Well, that’s about all I got, take it easy.

Pa

Back To Eden Film: If you haven’t seen it click here to check it out. The guy is a bit of a holy roller, not that it’s a bad thing, just thought you might like to know.

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• Much to chew over before mulching (triblive.com)
• The No Dig, No Till Garden (permaculturecottage.wordpress.com)

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