WEEDLESS Gardening

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HOW DO PLANTS LIKE IT?

Beans, beets and their bedfellows thrive in soil that has never been turned over or stirred up, yet is perpetually blanketed with compost, grass clippings or other organic mulch.

The humus that builds up in undisturbed soil blanketed with organic mulch provides a rich spectrum of nutrients and other benefits. In addition to plant nutrients released by the humus itself, other humus compounds make mineral nutrient already in the soil more available to plants. Humus keeps the soil loose so oxygen can reach plant roots and helps the soil hold water like a sponge. It even helps plant fight off pests by releasing protective corn pounds and supporting microorganism that fend off pathogens.

Conventional wisdom would have us mixing humus-rich material deep into the soil "down where the roots are." However, most plant's feeder roots, whether of mighty oaks or midget marigolds, actually lie just below the soil surface. There, roots can hobnob with the numerous beneficial soil microorganisms, which thrive where air and organic fuels are most abundant. After all, for millions of years Nature has been creating soils from the top down. Leaf litter drops on the surface of the ground then gradually decomposes to form humus. Old roots, abundant near the surface, similarly decompose and make their contribution to humus. The difference between natural soils, which require hundreds of years to develop, and our gardens is we don't have to rely only on leaves, stems, and roots of resident plants for soil building. We can bring in additional materials, such as grass clippings, leaves, compost, wood chips and manure.

Starting a New Garden Bed

One of the great appeals of weedless gardening is the ease and speed with which you can get plants up and growing. You can prepare the ground (or get your garden back in shape if it has become a sea of weeds) at any time of year. The steps outlined here are applicable to any planting, be it vegetables, flowers, shrubs, vines or trees.

ELIMINATING EXISTING VEGETATION

The first step in preparing a garden site is to flatten existing vegetation whether it's a hay field, meadow, lawn or weeds, in any way possible. It will be down but not dead. Roots, still alive, will sprout new stems and leaves. Prevent this by smothering the plants beneath a temporary, impenetrable blanket that shades new leaves trying to emerge, eventually starving roots. Paper is the perfect material for this job. It eventually decomposes but is needed for only the short while it takes to kill existing plants. An alternative to newspaper is landscape barrier paper or building paper, such as gray rosin paper, which is undyed and made from recycled newspaper. Any paper will do, but avoid those with colored inks, which sometimes contain unwanted heavy metals.

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