As winter comes to an end in parts of the world, no doubt there are many gardeners out
there who are asking the question "How do I convert this piece of land into a productive
vegetable garden?'
While some may be fortunate enough to start with a weed free lawn or a field with deep
fertile topsoil, many of us are facing neglected, rough sites that are overgrown, uneven and
full of weeds.
This is the context that I faced last year when I was starting to plan the Black Plot.
The land that is now the Black Plot used to be the site of a series of polytunnels that
had been destroyed in a storm a few years ago.
Since then it has been abandoned and has become overgrown with lots of perennial weeds, especially
couch grass or scutch grass.
There’s also signs that a lot of weed seeds have been deposited on the surface of the
soil.
Some areas of site that had been the beds, the growing beds of the former polytunnels
seemed to be in good condition, but other sections were quite compacted.
In addition there were piles of stones, and mounds of decomposing vegetation, and patches
of subsoil and other debris.
To top it off, the edges of the old polytunnel plastic were still buried in the soil.
It was a tough site to start with, but I was determined to convert a sizeable portion of
this 1000 square meter or quarter acre site into productive beds for this past growing
season.
My first instinct was to get a local farmer to plough the full site, but this would have
been difficult with the buried plastic, the uneven ground, and the tricky access.
I was also tempted to rent a rototiller, and work over the site a few times, but there
still would have been a problem with buried plastic, and it probably would have made the
weed problem worse by chopping up and spreading around the couch grass roots.
I felt that the area was too large to use No-Dig methods, as it would have required
an excessive amount of material.
Besides, I haven’t been overly successful with using No-Dig methods in this climate
- yet.
A few people suggested I should get some pigs or other animals to work over the site for
a season, but I wanted to grow vegetables, not manage animals.
And I felt that spraying the site with a broad spectrum herbicide was not an option.
So, I ended up preparing much of the land by hand, using a modified version of lazy
beds.
Lazy beds are an old technique, that historically would have been used in some parts of Ireland
to grow potatoes in hillsides an in some rough ground.
The classic method consisted of cutting a clump of sod from what will become the path
and folding it over, upside down on top of the growing bed, burying two layers of vegetation
underneath a layer of soil.
If done carefully, it leaves a clean surface of soil on the bed, that with a little bit
of extra preparation is ready to plant into.
It’s a relatively easy and efficient way to establish regular lines of growing beds
by hand, and since I wanted to establish the Black Plot as a series of standardised fixed
beds, this was a useful part of the process.
Although it is labour intensive, compared to mechanised methods, I had the help of a
couple of hard working volunteers, which made the decision a little bit easier.
The method we used was an adaptation of the traditional lazy bed, modified to deal with
the rougher conditions and weeds.
First we used a sharp spade to cut through the vegetation, roots and soil to define the
edge of the bed.
To start the digging we cut a deep clump of sod out of the end of the bed and set it aside,
creating a short trench across the width of the bed.
We then cut clumps of grass and soil from the paths and placed this at the bottom of
the new trench.
Then we cut the next section of the growing bed and rolled this over on top, filling the
previous trench and creating a new one.
We repeated this process down the length of the bed, picking out exposed rocks and roots
of weeds as we went, and making sure to bury the vegetation and any weed seeds that would
have been on the surface.
At the end of the bed the first clump of sod was used to fill the final trench.
As we dug it became more apparent just how diverse the conditions were in the soil, which
led me to abandon my initial planting plans.
Some of the newly created beds had soil that was in really good condition, with very few
perennial weeds.
These beds were designated for growing carrots, parsnip and other crops that can’t handle
a lot of competition and need a cleaner soil.
It made sense to plant larger and more aggressive vegetables such as brassicas and potatoes
on the rougher beds and those with greater amounts of couch grass.
The really poor areas with uneven ground, buried plastic and excessive perennial weeds
were covered with opaque ground cover, after digging, and designated to be planted with
pumpkins and squash.
Having done all the work, and managed the beds for the first season, I think the decision
to use this modified lazy bed method to establish the plot was a good one - for the most part.
Primarily, it enabled me to get started growing in the space quickly.
I also believe that it was less damaging to the worms and other soil biology than other
methods of cultivation would have been.
But, I think the main benefit was that it stretched out the work over time, and reduced
the initial amount of labour that was necessary.
First, we established the beds and removed any unearthed roots of perennial weeds.
Then, while the crops were growing, I spent time hoeing the beds to knock back the remaining
perennial weeds that regrew.
This time also allowed the earthworms and other soil biology to decompose most of the
buried vegetation and to work through the soil.
I am now in the process of digging over the beds and removing crops, weed, plastic and
other debris, which is much easier now that a lot of the fibrous roots have decomposed,
and the soil is looser.
Later this spring, and no doubt for several years to come, I will be dealing with the
abundance of weed seeds that were initially buried, but will inevitably be dug up and
sprout.
But, of course, not everything went well.
The carrots and a few other crops that I sowed didn’t grow well with the decaying vegetation
around their roots.
Another issue was that the regrowth of couch grass was quite problematic in some areas,
especially as I didn’t hoe the garden as often as I had planned to.
It may have helped to have delayed planting for a additional month to allow time to deal
with the perennial weeds that did regrow.
I probably also should have covered a few more beds with opaque ground cover.
And finally, it would have been better for the first season to grow only larger, more
aggressive crops, that could handle the decaying vegetation around their roots, and could overshadow
the weeds.
Given what I know know, would I do the same thing again?
Probably not, but more because I would want to try something different.
Taking the time to methodically dig out the vegetation and remove it to the compost pile,
as well as removing the plastic and debris, would be an option.
But only I had lots of time, or lots of volunteers to help, as well as extra fertility to feed
the crops for the first year.
If I was willing to wait a year before growing crops, I would consider sheet mulching the
whole site, or using an opaque ground cover to kill off the vegetation before preparing
the fixed beds.
But the option I would probably use would be to dig out the plastic and debris by hand,
and then get my farmer friend to plough the entire site in the autumn.
I would then get her to harrow the space a few times in the spring to scratch out as
many of the couch grass roots as possible.
I think this would be an appropriate use of fossil fuels and readily available mechanisation,
and would have saved a lot of time and effort.
In the end we prepared 25 growing beds last year, each about 20 meters long, totalling
about 600 square meters or about 6000 square feet of growing space.
It took almost 40 hours of work, spread over a few weeks, but I’m really glad we did
it that way, because I learned a lot and we were able to get established quite quickly.
I don’t mind a fair amount of hard manual labour, and I’m usually not that quick to
jump to labour saving mechanisation.
But in this case I wonder if I found the best balance between time, labour and machine.
I wonder in what context I might use a herbicide like Roundup.
I might instinctively say never, but that’s probably more my echo chamber speaking for
me.
The realist in me recognises that these man-made compounds are already so pervasive in our
food and environment, and that a weed infested site can be one of the most debilitating factors
that are preventing people from successfully growing their own food.
Taking these two things into consideration, I can certainly understand why people would
use a herbicide to help establish a growing space.
Personally, I think that if I was in a situation of significant scarcity and urgency, and needed
to establish a growing space in a weed infested ground, but didn’t have the time or capacity
to properly manage it, I would seriously consider a single application of herbicide, as an option.
I'm not in that situation right now, but perhaps I need to consider doing a small trial plot
at some point in the future, because I'm not really comfortable dismissing potentially
useful tools and methods, without trying them first.
Besides, that's what this RED Garden Project is all about.