Fossil Abstinence: Build a Garden in a Day

Turn wild weeds, or lawn, into a “Three Sisters Garden” in a few hours without an engine! While planning your new garden, soak the seeds you’ll want to plant for 24 hours, and then rinse them twice a day for a few days (the method for sprouting seeds for salads) so they’re sprouting when you’re ready to plant (or for motivation to prepare the plot!).  You’ll have to get them in the soil or in containers with a growing medium before the leaves show or the roots get too tangled. Procure sheets of used material that won’t let weeds grow through. Don’t buy new stuff for this purpose- reuse sheets on their way to a landfill or recycling. Neighbors have given me old tarps, tents, swimming pool covers made of black plastic, outdoor carpeting, and even swimming pool liners that all have worked well. Holes and tears don’t matter – you’ll be adding a lot more. Clear material doesn’t work well because weeds grow underneath if they can see daylight.

This past week I converted two patches of weeds (30’ x 80’ and 20’ x 80’ of Canadian thistle, goldenrod and nettles) into gardens that should soon produce hundreds of pounds of squash, corn and beans (the three sisters). We hadn’t had rain for a long time so the larger patch I scythed because the roots of the five foot tall weeds would not pull out of the soil. I used a hay fork to pile them and the dead stems from last year along one edge. Any exposed stones I also removed. I spread out the 6-mil black plastic former pool cover and threw the weeds and stones on top of the plastic. This ballast prevents wind from moving the cover and protects the plastic from being degraded by sunlight, helping it last many years. This is what it looks like at the ballast stage:  http://screencast.com/t/MjAyZWEyY I tied little loops every three feet along a string and suspended this above each row to indicate where to make holes. After pushing aside any weed ballast in the way I cut three 14” sides of a square to make flaps that I tuck under the downhill side of the hole. You can see a layout sketch here:   http://screencast.com/t/YmM2MzNm Kneeling, I use a garden fork to turn over the soil in these holes, one by one, removing any roots, or whole root ball, and place them on top for more ballast. It’s also good to reach under the covering and contour the soil on the uphill side of the hole so that rain drains into each hole. The edges of the covering can be tucked under the soil and the sprouting seeds planted. I put five corn plants in every other hole, and two squash in those between. The next row, four feet from the first, I place the holes in the covering between adjacent rows so that any rain running down the slope, enters a hole. To give the corn a head start, I plant three climbing beans with the corn a few weeks later.

Yesterday we received more than two inches of rain and for the second garden I was able to pull out the thistles and nettles and simply throw them to the edge. After spreading the cover material, I proceeded as above. The scythe is a bit quicker but leaves stubble that is annoying to walk and kneel on. After it rains, if any puddles form in the covering, it’s important to poke holes so that all the water is available to the plants. It takes only a few minutes to poke holes in every puddle using a garden or hay fork. Of course, the holes for plants do not have to be evenly spaced, nor in straight lines, but I find it easier to do the math on productivity when using regular intervals. Also, when everything is covered in heavy mulch, it’s easier to find the next hole if it’s spaced the same as the last.

I always carry a sharp scissors in the “pencil” pocket of my bib overalls both to cut the holes and to halve any slugs that come along. These voracious pests can destroy sprouting plants before they get a good start. Tucking in the covering edges makes it difficult for slugs (and snails if you have them) to hide. This method of gardening reduces the amount of “tilling” to the bare minimum (11% of the area) and makes it pretty easy to plant many thousands of square feet in a day. Any weeds that poke through simply get added to the ballast. Over the summer I keep adding grass cuttings to the ballast until all that’s visible is a mat of dried grass covered with squash vines, with corn and beans rising above. This mulch composts so that by the following spring, all but any woody stems have been reduced to humus by thousands of worms. The second year even the stems are gone. If weeds start growing where humus collects on top of the cover, simply pick up the whole mat held together by roots and turn it upside down. With no connection to moisture, they dry up in a day or two.

When I harvest corn, I cut the stalks into six to eight inch lengths and add them to the ballast. I leave two inches of the stalk sticking above the soil. Keeping the pieces moist all winter helps them compost and the nubs sticking above the soil mark where corn grew. By spring there is no trace of the squash so you simply plant the squash where the corn nubs are. Here’s what month-old plants look like today:  http://screencast.com/t/YjYwNmU0Y . But there is no reason not to plant any crop with this method. We’re growing tomatoes, basil and peppers in last year’s three sisters garden which is why I expanded our garden this year. Here are some tomatoes and peppers growing below three sisters:  http://screencast.com/t/ODZjZGVjZ A year or two later there will be no live weed material under the cover and the planting holes can be made any size for placing onions, salad greens and other vegetables that are easier to plant in rows.

It’s not too late to convert a tangle of weeds into productive garden space that will grow more food than you can eat. Our goal this year is to give away more than a ton of vegetables to neighbors and food pantries.