#sheet mulching

**Edited because Ariel is a total airhead and set this to publish with the wrong title SORRY. Everything else is literally the same; it's just that the title and image are changed. Here's more about the episode:

MOVING SLOWLY AND PLANTING THINGS WITH ERIN ALLADIN is public! Ariel interviews @ErinAlladin about her life as a gardener & her new book, reframing #gardening as #accessible for everybody.

Erin Alladin’s new e-book “Gentle Gardening: A Guide for Uncooperative Bodies” is transformative, specifically covering the issues of gardening with chronic fatigue and the other complex disabilities that can accompany it, and reframing gardening as an accessible and fun activity. Ariel talks to Erin in this episode about her journey with gardening to where she is now, the book, a bit about…

I started chopping and dropping by hand, but it took me like 20min to do about 6 sqft. I mowed the majority as best I could and then chopped the edges in by hand so they would have a hard time escaping out of the side. I left all the clippings on top. I also popped in my lemonbalm transplant I bought for $5 from a local gardener on Facebook marketplace.

Then a layer of contractor's paper.

Then some free local mulch. Normally I'd say woodchips, but this load was extra leafy.

Ta-dah!

Been super busy working on the yard lately. I’ve got the front yard “done” and ready for planting. Hopefully we don’t get neighbors complaining about the straw mulch.

We’re doing sheet mulching over some crappy dirt -- a layer of 100% cotton sheets, cardboard, and newspaper, a thick layer of compost, and a thick layer of straw mulch. It’s not pretty but plants will love it. (You’ll see all sorts of techniques and recipes for sheet mulching; it’s very forgiving and you can do it pretty much any way you want, as long as you have a weed barrier layer, and thick mulch.)

We had to take out some leaning pine trees in front which opened it up to a little more sun, and while we were at it, we had a low branch taken off the flowering plum to let in a little more light. We’ll still be doing shade-tolerant vegetables in front, however. 

Today I bought a whole bunch more cotton sheets at the thrift store today, and did a first layer in the backyard. There is a similar shady hill I’m treating the same in the backyard. I am planting a huckleberry bush back there (native berries for the shade!).

I’m just going to mulch over it and not do too much compost back there because I’m now broke -- the mushroom compost for the front drained my wallet.  I might do a thin layer of compost and then the straw if I can scrape together the money.

Brought some compost & grass clippings to help build up the organic matter:

We'll keep layering leaves and clippings as we get them, but I did start sowing some seeds in one area.

I saved a lot of seeds this summer, so I was able to take the calculated risk of sowing a bunch now, even though it's kinda late and this is less than ideal conditions. I was able to sow some kale, lettuce, arugula, and mustard greens. If you know about mycorrhizae, than you probably know that brassicas are one of the few families that don't use mycorrhizae- which is why 3 out of the 4 I mentioned are brassicas. They're getting planted straight into compost as the first generation because they'll be just fine even without a good mycorrhizal community.

I also sowed a beneficial bug mix, extra cover, and some self-heal in what in the future will be walk ways.

After that, I did a bit of work on the native plant area, pulling and cutting off invasive species. Here's some of them:

Two kinds of invasive blackberry & scotch broom. That area has a lot of salal, evergreen huckleberry, and Doug fir coming up. I'm going to maintain part of it as a praire environment, but encourage trees where they already are. They're far enough away from the main garden area that they won't shade it for many years.

Here's a look over some of the area, and it demonstrates that it looks a bit funky at the moment:

As you can see, the soil doesn't have much organic matter, and it is rather sandy, without aggregates. The plants that are here right now are mostly non-native grasses & catsear, with some hardy natives like selfheal.

We're going to start by deep mulching (often called sheet mulching or lasagna gardening) this fall, with an eye towards planting in the spring. We will plant some things this fall, mostly leafy greens & raspberries once they've gone dormant. The deep mulching will add lots of organic matter, support soil life (which in turn supports plant life), kill off the grass, and just generally improve everything.