A couple of our top secret ideas for our garden this year..
1. Plant our vegtables in a hay bale. That's a bale of hay or straw. Why not? Hay or straw are both great for mulch and will decompose next winter into excellent mulch that will help your 'normal' garden and make a home for worms, hay is affordable. I know hay or straw holds moisture, putting newspapers under the bales may help with less watering and newspapers will turn into great mulch [Steve and I like using cardboard...usually contain less ink than newspapers and worms seem to just love cardboard and move into your garden and help with your garden]....hopefully....less watering too. We'll see this growing season and know more next fall.
2. Another new idea that I like is from Kim Wood .. and we will use this year...using wire fencing in the garden. By that I mean , a a roll of welded wire. cut into several lengths and 3-foot widths, they are placed as a dome over each garden bed after they are planted. This prevents kids, pets etc. from walking on small delicate new plants. The wire also acts as a support for plastic if weather turns cold unexpectly in the spring.
And,all the plants that spread out in a garden, Kim uses a welded-wire cage, around a compost pile of dried leaves, horse manure and other organic material, the wire fence pieces are held together with zip ties. DO NOT plant your garden/plants in the compost inside this wire cage that's been created. The compost will get too hot and damage plants. But, plant your veggies etc. along the outside of the wire fence, the plants can be tied to the fencing if needing support during the growing months so the vegetables are off the ground. Water only the inside of wire cage by hand by pouring a bucket of water in side this compost cage or use a hand held hose to water inside the compost, and let the water run out into the plants, this slowly fertilizes the plants. I think this is a great idea, and I will be trying it this year, I will be be careful and watch the compost pile for heat and use aged manure only.
Kim Wood's favorite book on this subject is “Tips for the Lazy Gardener” by Linda Tiglner, which I will find and read right away.
For Kim Wood..go here.. KIM WOOD's Site
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