Chico, Sustainable

I was reading that late fall is the time to start thinking about prepping one's garden for spring planting. So on a sunny 70 degree November day I went out to my compost bin with my shovel, rake, hoe, and wheelbarrow to begin work on my permaculture garden. Not that I have every planted a permaculture garden before, but I didn't let that discourage me. I can pronounce the word, and that's a start.

The first thing that I did was take stock of my compost bin, and noted that its contents didn't much look like the dark, rich brown matter you can purchase from most nurseries. The grass clippings, leaves, yard trimmings and food scraps (a half-gallon a week of apple cores, egg shells, potato peelings, etc.) that I had been piling up since May still looked like a jumble of grass clippings, leaves, yard trimmings and food scraps. But never fear: according to the experts, I had "mulch." "Mulch becomes compost." Perfect.

Next I raked up the 1/2 inch or so of wood chips that had been set down by the previous owner of my house. This exposed the bare soil. I would reuse the chips later. I seemed to recall something about laying down cardboard and/or newsprint as a next step. I used what I had, covering an area about 6' X 15' with old boxes and a couple of issues of the News and Review. My recollection was that this was to smother the weeds. The wood chips had done a fair job of suppressing the weeds anyway, but I didn't let that stop me.

I then shoveled seven wheelbarrow loads of "mulch" onto the cardboard, including beetles, centipedes, larval things, bits of eggshell, small chunks of wood, and who knows what else. Though my mixture was not warm from decomposition, I knew something had happened in the months that it had been sitting, for with the exception of some avocado peels and a few corn cobs, most the of the food scraps weren't really visible, and nothing smelled bad. I ended up with a sheet of mulch about 5" deep. It look a little dry, so I let the sprinkler water it for 45 minutes. The I topped it off by raking the wood chips back on top, as well as sprinkling a layer of straw that I had left over from an aborted art project (long story that I won't go into here).

Next step--wait until spring.

That evening, I compared my efforts with the recommended soil prep methods described in Gaia's Garden, A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture. It turns out that I didn't do half bad. For many, soil preparation is a fine art. So for the record, here is are some of the things that I could have or should have done but didn't. However, I am happy to let this serve as an experiment that I will document for the benefit of humanity.

--The soil was damp when I set down my cardboard, but I could have wet it down a bit more.
--I didn't add any soil amendments (lime, sulfur, gypsum, phosphorus etc.), however the soil in my neighborhood is considered pretty healthy to start with.
--It was recommended that I add a 1" layer of grass clippings. There were some grass clippings mixed into my mulch, but certainly not an inch worth.
--My 3-sheet layer of newspaper could have been 1/4 - 1/2" (to at least match the thickness of the cardboard)
--Mulch is recommended to be 8-12" thick, but I didn't have that much. This should be followed by 1-2" of compost and a couple inches of hay. I did my best.
--My partially decomposed mulch likely has a lot of viable weed-seeds in it, and it is likely that I did my garden a disservice by giving them a lift to a new part of the yard. We'll see.