Lazy Gardening

Apr 1, 1999 - © Deborah Turton

will die underneath and provide food for worms and other friendlies. This is what I did with my forsythia, except I didn't bother with the newspaper because I didn't care if the grass grew up around the stems of the plants.

Now, no-till is not perfect. Aha, you say, here's the bad news -it only works during alternate summers when you do the no-till dance dressed only in rose petals under a full moon. Uh, no, the bad news is it may not work well for root crops the first year. Carrots can divide if they hit large pieces of stuff like shredded leaves. Other root crops can hit the newspapers and be forced to grow sideways.

It also doesn't work really well if you're trying to smother something like quack grass or Bermuda grass (and don't get me started on Bermuda grass). You will probably have to remove the top layer of sod with the noxious weed and start with the bare ground. Of course, if these noxious weeds are in your yard, they will invade your garden, and you'll have a never-ending battle. But you'll have that battle whether or not you're wreaking carnage on the soil life.

So, go out there, annoy your significant other and triple the size of your garden. Just be nice to the worms and other soil friendlies. They'll work very hard, and you won't have to.

The copyright of the article Lazy Gardening in Organic Gardening is owned by Deborah Turton. Permission to republish Lazy Gardening in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

Go To Page: 1 2 3

Articles in this Topic    Discussions in this Topic