Veggie garden planning help needed

[Obsi]

ok.. talk to me about no dig gardens...

I've let our vegie patch go feral, and now it's all weeds, and the chooks got in there and scratched away the dirt into the gravel paths and knocked out some of my (poorly done) boards around the beds.... Nothing has ever grown very well there, so I think the soil is the problem (it's fairly clay based)... so I'm thinking putting a no dig garden on top would be the best way to go...

But I can't spend any money on setting it up (I may be able to get a bale of hay).... and nothing lying around to be able to make the sides from... any suggestions for making a no dig garden on a tight (eg no) budget?

I do have a large garbage bin full of "poo soup" that has been stewing for about 6 months (water and chook poo), and we have tons of leaves around... we have an old compost bin whose contents should be composted, and I could get hubby to mow the back lawn, so I could scrounge up mulchy, composty, manurey stuff... and I could buy hay (and I've started saving newspapers)

We get lots of that grass that makes suckers and gets in infesting everywhere... would newspapers be enough to stop it?

The existing garden beds are created with fence pailings and small wooden stakes, only about 20cm wide though, not high enough to work as sides.... and not enough of them to double up.

Unfortunately I think of this now, when we had a "hard rubbish' collection last week which could have provided plenty of makings for sides!

[allyr]

Hmm. I was wondering about the newspaper too Obsi. I've nut grass in that back bed, which I may have to poison. THen I was thinking of putting down a layer of newspaper, some bokashi mulch and potting mix and then just chucking the pumpkin seeds in.

Would this work?

[photocat]

Me thinks going up is a great idea if you're a little space challenged.

Sinfonian's square foot garden has plans and pics for build-as-you-grow potato bins. There's other garden designy bits on that site, might be worth a look.

[ness]

We just put in a no-dig garden, and have been having heaps of fun with it too!

Obsi you could even use pots/containers as a cheap alternative...

Pottering About – Productive Plants and Patches in Pots - Sustainable Gardening Australia

See how you go with these links which have instructions and heaps of info:

‘No Dig’ Vegie Gardens - BAAG

Dig It – The Lowdown on the Built Up Vegie Patch - Sustainable Gardening Australia

[Obsi]

I've been googling and seen the last two links, but the pot one was interesting. I can't afford to buy any pots, but I do have a few I've been growing things in.

We have a vegie patch already though, it's about 4x4 metres.... It's just that I've let it go to ruin and the soil quality is terrible... so hardly anything grows (we're on a lot of clay here, and I've tried to make a better soil mix by adding in potting mix and compost and some manure, but it's not enough to really help), that I thought an easier option would be to put a no dig garden ontop of it... which might over time improve the soil there too.

[Kitikova]

You could do that. I think generally you just have to alternate layers of wet and dry (so like compost/manure-style wet layers, hay/straw-style dry layers), some blood & bone etc along the way and make sure you water in each layer well before adding the next.

[~*Bron*~]

can you buy any mushroom compost? i've found it does dry out a fair bit, so it may be helpful with the clay??

[*Tracee*]

We have clay soils too Obsi but with lots of love and sweat they're now beautiful and rich.

We (well I should be honest and say DH) dig them after each crop comes out, and I mean really dig, we add wet mushy cow poo, compost if it's ready and blood and bone.
When we started the beds we bought some mushy compost, was about $30 from memory for a big trailer of the stuff?
We also heavily mulch with old straw which slowly rots into the soil too.
We went from having hard sods of dirt with no bugs to now having black, aerated soil wriggling with worms

[~*Bron*~]

oh, and green manure would help too!

[Obsi]

hmm... Might have to just dig some more manure and compost and stuff through it and persevere until it gets better