new garden question

Have about 500 sq ft that I want to make into garden for next year....this area is grass now. what is best way to get this area ready for next year? I just today found a source for coffee grounds today, and was thinking to spread coffee grounds over grass and then cover with plastic....then till next spring.....I don't know if this is best plan....any advise appreciated.....

Reply to
cheapdave
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Cheap Dave, lazy Billy here to recommend that you look at the web sites below.

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Lasagna gardening is no dig gardening, although if you could double dig it the first year, and that would be the end of the digging.
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way be sure to add your amendments to the organic material, manure, phosphate, and potassium, when you prep the garden area this Fall.

Plastic (clear) is good, if your trying to kill off weeds with solar heat (solarization), but it will keep the moisture out as well (not a good idea to my mind). Lasagna gardening will pretty much bury the problem of weeds.

Oh, yeah, coffee grounds can be used on blueberry plants and potatoes with no harm, but compost them first before you used them on any other plant.

Reply to
Billy

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'd not bother with the plastic and instead cover the area with cardboard or old felt carpet underlay. Whatever comes free and second hand. A carpet layer will often have second hand hessian underlay they are happy to part with for free.

Coffee grounds, food scraps, leaves, grass clippings. Chuck it all on top of the hessian or cardboard and leave for a few months & you have a garden.

rob

Reply to
George.com

The video on this page is a laugh. The joker mows his leaves up to make mulch TWICE. He mows them TWICE. Roftl. Once is more than adequate. Twice is just wasting time you could be on the couch with newspaper or snoozing.

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Reply to
George.com

The joker mows up his leaves. He opens the catcher and explains that the leaves are somewhat mulched up.

He then explains that he will mow them again.

Eh?

He wants them mulched up finer.

Why?

He spreads them on his drive way and mows them up again.

By that point my leaves are on the garden & I am on the sofa with a nice cup of tea & the newspaper.

rob

Reply to
George.com

I think this system works even better if you chuck all thos things under the free top layer. I like to let the worms get at it and do a lot of work for me. But then my soil is rotten and hard and wormless so I also dig up some worms from my veg garden, dig a tiny bit of soil so thye at least have some soil cover and then do what you describe.

Reply to
FarmI

hmmmm.......doh. This makes good sense, in that the worms don't have to chew thru the cardboard/hessian/whatever before they begin to work.

Same weed reduction results, but faster soil improvement results.

Thanks for the idea, Wormwrangler.

Charlie

Reply to
Charlie

I would suggest that you first lay down your soil amendments (manure, rock phosphate, potassiun [wood ash, what ever]), then your cardboard, or newsprint, and then cover that unsightly mess with the mulch of your choice (I prefer alfalfa), then if you want to go full gonzo, spread some green manure seeds (I'd go with rye or buckwheat to condition the soil [make it looser], or some legumes to add more nitrogen to the soil). In any event, the worms will thank you for it.

Reply to
Billy

No disagreement witcha on this and what I have done also, but my take and thinking, after Fran's post, is lay down a good layer of worm bait and food, such as cooked rice and pasta, veggie trimmings, rotten fruit and trimmings, etc., *under* the cardboard, with amendements, in order to give the crawlers a head start on doing their business, and then continue with the layering. Just a slight variation on the procedure to which we subscribe.

As far as the alfalfa, one needs to find the right balance perhaps. I think parts of my garden suffered from alfalfa meal overdose this year. At least I had what appeared to be nitrogen burn on some things that I likely OD'd with too much alfalfa meal and blood meal. Particularly in my potted mix.

Charlie

Reply to
Charlie

May I see the wine list?;o)

No argument, but I doubt that worms would see much difference between cardboard or newsprint vis-a-vis leaf mulch, or straw.

I've had the same problems with alfalfa pellets, which I use in my lettuce patch, but with a much lighter hand in pots now. Manure Chicken Diary cow Horse Steer Alfalfa Fish Emulsion N 1.1 .257 .70 .70 3 5 P .80 .15 .30 .30 1 1 K .50 .25 .60 .40 2 1 You can see that alfalfa is almost three times stronger in "N" than chook doo.

I still use it (pellets) in the lettuce, and carrots because I don't want to bury the plants under mulch. Otherwise, I've never had a problem with baled alfalfa as a mulch.

The tomatoes are starting to come around, producing a little more each day. Koralic came in first, followed by Stupice. Everything else is very green.

Happy to report that we no longer need to put on music for dinner. The crickets arrived two nights ago. With the stair lights on, it is nearly magical outside in the evening. (We eat late.)

Reply to
Billy

I think the operative word, Billy, in my suggestion was 'chuck'. I could substitute it with the word 'bung' to try and reflect the approach I am taking.

No just 'do nothing gardening', but 'close enough is good enough gardening'.

rob

Reply to
George.com

Lazy Cow is another name I'm quite prepared to answer to. I don't see why I should do something if all those tireless wee wrigglers will do a lot of the soil prep for me.

Reply to
FarmI

Charlie I often use lucerne (alfalfa) straw as a mulch but I notice in another post that you refer to alfalfa pellets.

Can you buy lucerne (alfalfa) in bales such as you'd feed to a horse as this stuff is magnificent as a mulch. Or even if you could buy it in the chaff form should also be good. It's ideal for gardens but not for cattle. My old lecturer when I was doing a farm animal production course used to say that feeding lucerne to cows was like feeding chocolate to children.

Reply to
FarmI

Do you happen to know when you harvest alfalfa? After reading about it here, I decided to grow it in bare patches. Some is about 18" tall and blooming.

Kate

Reply to
kate

It's just Mr. Occam and his razor again. No sense making anything more difficult than it has to be. But tell me again, why is Chuck underneath the Hessian with a bung? All sounds rather "kinky" to this country boy. Must be what comes from spending your life up-side down ;O)

Reply to
Billy

Dammit, Billy, I done tolja ta quit callin' me Chuck!!!

And it's a damned log I'm *tryin* to stay under, not some effing German mercenary and they ain't no bungin' involved, of any sort, you old effer!!!

*Charlie*.....not Chuck
Reply to
Charlie

I'm unable to find small bales locally this year, at least ones that aren't contracted or weedy as hell, and don't feel like driving thirty odd miles for a few bales. Most producers and farmers are now baling in the 1500 lb round bales. A bit unruly to wrestle into my small garden. ;-) I'm using chopped leaves and old moldy straw this year for mulch.

I use alfalfa pellets and meal in potting mix and incorporated in compost and the mulch. Meal sounds like the chaff you mention. Meal is ground alfalfa which has the consistency of, say....hmmmm......wheat germ, and is good for incorporation or as a slurry with water in compost (thanks to catdaddy, gets a heap smokin'), but I find tends to form a crust when used as mulch.

CHalrie

Reply to
Charlie

Uhhhh.....yeah....right....*you* may answer to that, but *I* ain't about to call it out. Shit, old Charlie knows how to tread thru a minefield!! ;-))))

Reply to
Charlie

Yeah, well, I'm scratching me arse and trying to figure if I've been directly, or indirectly, insulted or what.

(Bloody cheeky often obtuse bloke rob is, he is)

Charlie, who just this minute remembered the cider laid down and is going for an opener and bottle this very minute...

Reply to
Charlie

What's up . . . err, hmmm?

Reply to
Billy

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