With the exception of sweet corn, all of our vegetables are grown in raised beds. And while building a new raised bed is a good deal of work, the resulting ease of growing crops in raised beds greatly outweighs the initial outlay in labor and materials.
I usually make my own compost from chicken manure and wood shavings. It generally takes six months to a year to get finished compost that is completely safe (won't burn plants) for use in the garden, so I like to always have a new compost pile underway for future use. And those piles need to be turned periodically until composting is complete. I guess you could say I do my turning in the compost pile instead of in the garden.
Years ago, I dug in my beds and turned over the soil as I mixed in decayed compost; and years before I built any raised beds, I ran a tiller or a tractor with a tilling attachment in the garden to prepare a seedbed for planting. Now I no longer do any digging in my raised beds as I have come to believe it is better for the health of the soil not to disturb it by turning it over. I learned this by watching nature, where, in the woods right next to our garden, no one turns the soil or fertilizes it but the trees grow and do well. If you look under the leaves, the soil is black and rich-looking.
We call it topsoil and it is coveted as an amendment to flower and vegetable gardens worldwide. The forest has an inexhaustible, renewable supply just by the buildup of leaves dropping down and the action of earthworms, insects, bacteria and microbes working together with the rain and weather to form humus and leaf mold.
But this process takes place without being turned over. It is only man who turns the soil and uncovers it. Nature prefers a covering on the land. Trees and grasses and innumerable plants in native prairies are Nature's models. Where the soil is left uncovered, there is found dust and erosion and loss of fertility. One of the worst inventions to ever come along was the plow and one of the best ideas, in recent times, at any rate, was the rise of no-till farming.
Man began to cultivate the ground after leaving the Garden. Weeds have been his lot ever since. The two (cultivation and weeds) go hand in hand. A good mulch will greatly reduce the amount of weeds growing in the garden and it will also make the soil mellower so that any remaining weeds are easier to pull. Pulling weeds in my raised beds is actually fun.
So the process at our place is to plant our seeds or seedlings and, as soon as they are big enough, we mulch them to keep down weeds and protect the soil from drying out. Earthworms work on the mulch to pull it down into the bed and convert it into rich castings as they eat their way through it. We bury all our kitchen wastes, except for meat and fat of course, in the compost pile.
For mulch, we use either compost or wood shavings. If using wood shavings, it is important to make sure the shavings stay on top of the soil. The same applies to leaves. Also do not plant directly into shavings but in the soil underneath. This way the high carbon shavings won't pull all the nitrogen out of your soil, thus robbing your plants of much-needed nutrition.
Cover crops can be planted in the fall to protect the soil and keep it covered. This will greatly enhance the fertility of the garden. I don't work them into the soil in the spring. I merely cut the cover crop down before it goes to seed and cover it with a layer of compost. Plant in this and your plants will love you.
Sam Byrnes is a Gentry-area resident and regular contributor to the Eagle Observer. He may be contacted by email at [email protected]. Opinions expressed are those of the author.