Linda Vermonter

Hi, Patrice! Your soil looks like it has lots of clay (anybody else think so, or is it just me?) The nice thing about sheet mulching is that you can add all kinds of things ... a layer of sand, a layer of compost (these two are especially important if you do have heavy clay soil), bone meal, leaves, thick overlapped newspaper or cardboard to act as a weed barrier ... All of these things break down together, worms and other soil critters move in and stir it up.

I've heard people call this "lasagna" gardening.

You can plant right into the layers, water the seedlings well, and bring the cardboard/newspaper right up close to the plant to keep out weeds. By next year your soil will be much improved and you won't have dug up a singe spadeful of dirt.

Building a raised bed and filling it with compost and soil is another great way to counteract your clay.

Hi! I find Lawton's videos really helpful. I live in Vermont, where, like you, we get plenty of rain, but I DO plan to add some earthworks to our sloped, forested property. The point for me is to try to plan for an unstable future where we may see wildly different weather. As the climate heats up we may discover that our summers become much hotter and drier, and we may need to use conserved water to grow food. Better to do the work now than to wait until the crisis is upon us!