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How To Grow An Organic Vegetable Garden Without Digging (PHOTOS)

PHOTOS: How To Grow Organic Veggies Without Even Digging
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From Organic Gardening Magazine:

Build a better vegetable patch with this no-dig method, borrowed from organic farms in rural Australia. The no-dig piles are fairly stable, but some gardeners prefer to build boxes to contain them. Various materials work, including 1-by-12-inch boards, bricks, concrete blocks, stacked stones, or a staked frame of chicken wire. The materials below are enough to build a 4-by-8-foot raised bed.

• 2 to 3 pounds bloodmeal and bonemeal
• Newspapers
• 1 bale of herbicide-free alfalfa hay
• 1 bale of herbicide-free straw (use bedding straw, not feed straw, which has viable seeds)
• 10 cubic feet of compost (preferably homemade)

Step 1(01 of08)
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Moisten the soil thoroughly with a hose and add a generous dusting of bloodmeal and bonemeal. Wear a mask to avoid inhaling the dust. (Repeat the watering and dusting step after adding each layer to the pile.) (credit:Christa Neu)
Step 2(02 of08)
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Cover the ground with ¼ to ½ inch of newspapers. (credit:Christa Neu)
Step 3(03 of08)
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Place 4-inch-deep pads of alfalfa hay on top of the newspaper. (credit:Christa Neu)
Step 4(04 of08)
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Add 8-inch-deep pads of straw on top of the alfalfa hay. (credit:Christa Neu)
Step 5(05 of08)
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Top with 4 inches of compost. (credit:Christa Neu)
Step 6(06 of08)
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Plant vegetable starts or sow seeds in the compost layer. Top-dress with more straw or grass clippings. (credit:Christa Neu)
Step 7(07 of08)
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Between crops, rejuvenate the top layer with 2 to 3 inches of straw and 3 to 4 inches of compost. (credit:Christa Neu)
Other tips(08 of08)
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Don’t skimp on compost. “This method needs a lot, so start a compost pile or find a good source of compost elsewhere,” Marfisi advises.Don’t skip the bloodmeal and bonemeal. Bloodmeal adds nitrogen and bonemeal adds phosphorus to the layers, which is key to fostering decomposition of the hay and straw.Start with shallow-rooted plants in the first month or two. “Plant seedlings rather than seeds in the first crop,” he says.Keep young seeds and seedlings moist. Watering can be cut back significantly after plants are 6 to 7 inches tall. (credit:Christa Neu)

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