Well after taking a hiatus from writing for a bit, I found that I really did miss it, so I thought I would come back and continue to share all the things that I love about permaculture and working in the yard. I have to admit that my gardening practices are a bit unorthodox. I love to read and learn about permaculture and natural gardening practices, which are wonderful tools, but when it comes down to it, I like to listen to what the garden has to say. I have confidence that my tools can help me achieve what the natural world is asking of me, of us all.
Permaculture ideas will allow you to recognize the patterns found all around us in order to optimize the energy of the space, what is optimal, however, is where guidance is important. I think it's terribly important to remind ourselves that techniques are simply basic templates upon which to build our own model, you will have to figure out what works for you and your garden, don't be afraid to change a sheet mulching "recipe" to suit your needs.
That being said, let's get on with the sheet mulching shall we! Sheet mulching the yard this year was a few week process. There are two main areas of the graden that I want to make sure got a lot of love and soil building help, one of them is about 10x12' and the other is 3x13'. I started with the 10x12' plot a few weeks ago. The SE corner of the plot houses the compost pile, which was almost ready, but since it wasn't quite right yet was left in place to cook a little more. I did a lot of planting in this bed this year, squash, beans, beets, radishes, carrots, okra, tons of greens, but I left most of it in the ground. (I have no idea what has been done to this soil in previous years and I wanted to give the soil a chance to remediate itself before I did any testing, plus I really just wanted more organic matter in the soil.)
I took a couple of large cardboard boxes and laid them down over the garden bed, on top of any and all existing plant growth. For our yard the most important thing is to get as much organic matter into the soil as possible to leaving all the plants in the ground was vital. After I watered the cardboard (good sheet mulch is pretty wet, like a wrung out sponge) I tossed a layer of fallen leaves* down, I didn't mulch them but instead just walked around for a bit, then a placed a thin layer of soil on top of it all. I then took a hand aerator and walked over the entire area pushing the tongs into the ground to break up the cardboard a bit and break down the leaves even more. Then I watered, and watered a lot. It's amazing how much water sheet mulch will soak up. *my leaves also include pine needles, some cones and pencil sized twigs
I placed three layers of leaves, each heavily watered and with a tiny bit of soil in between each layer. To finish it off I tossed a little more soil on top. Now as of this point I could have covered it with more cardboard but I knew it was going to snow in a few days and I wanted to capture that moisture. I waited until after the snow then went out and placed a tarp over the entire area and secured it in place with a few rocks from the garden. The tarp will help keep the moisture in while raising the temperature and aiding in the decomposition. It's only been a few days but I can tell the mycelium are already pretty happy, starting the process of soil making.
Sheet mulching can be very useful for soil building as well as weed management. For now I'm just focusing on the soil, I'll worry about uninvited plants another time.
