Creating a garden anywhere using "Natural Agriculture"as shown by Masanobu Fukuoka

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Many people think it is too hard to create a garden or worry that they havent got room but I have found that it is much easier than you think if you do a raised bed effort using cardboard, woodchips or leaves, coffee, clay soil and compost. I am too old to dig and frankly having heavy clay soils makes digging almost impossible so this is the alternative which is still effective.

 This is a garden created on Caretaker Farm in early summer 2015. 

plants regrowing in 2016
a raised bed garden created in 2015











The same garden reproducing itself in May 2017
This garden was the first using some of the principles of Masanobu Fukuoka-seeds planted in clay bullets and then some plants allowed to reproduce....Coriander, Parsley, Kale even strawberries sending out runners so 20 original plants become 80.
Self-seeded Corinader

Self-seeded Parsley

The following garden named "Pen Duick" was created in October/November 2016 with the help of wwoofers.

The area for the garden is cleared and fenced
Cardboard/paper is placed to cover the whole site











leaves are laid over the cardboard to create the beds

clay soil covers the leaves

the clay is broken up for the garden


compost followed by lime powder is sprinkled over the clay




Seeds are scattered and then covered with straw
The finished garden














Pak Choi growing a week later
Zucchini plants coming through the straw













The garden view from the bottom


Following the methods of  Masanobu Fukuoka of "Natural Agriculture", I scattered red and white clover with the various vegetable seed so that a living green mulch would help in the dry weather to keep the plants alive-below is the result now January 31 2017, three months after starting this garden. 

Cucumber plants within a living clover mulch
The garden partially cleared early May 2017
View of Pen Duick garden May 2017

Gardens do not have to be big to produce lots of food. 

 Straw mulching and a garden place with lots of light allows salad to be grown over winter.
Garden pickings in winter

Comments

  1. Lois E Hunter1 March 2017 at 19:54

    Hadn't heard before about planting clover seed as a living mulch - great way to incorporate nitrogen into the soil at the same time.

    ReplyDelete

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