Hello! I am a long-time lover of the
permaculture ethos, and just this year was able to get a place and start doing some stuff! One of the great things about our home is it came with an already fenced-off garden area, which is great because we have tons of
deer and
rabbits. I'm not too sure about the
native soil, and I don't know much in general, but I think the neighbor said it is like a clay but that it also absorbs
water like crazy...
So the garden area came with raised beds, although nothing has been grown there in years since it is a remnant from the owner before the previous owners and the whole area was covered in grass and garbage. I got the area cleaned out and put down
cardboard to kill the grass and started covering that with some
wood chips, cut grass, and chop and drop leaves and twigs and such. The move itself and the house took up a lot of time and
energy, so we weren't able to do much with the garden although once the cardboard and mulch were down we stuck some plants in there. Not surprisingly, they didn't do much, but we did get some kale, tomatoes... the raspberries and blackberries were already established so they were the most productive... some squash did grow but not a ton and pretty small fruits, and the slugs or whatever got most of those, and the pests did a real number on the cabbage. I stuck some potatoes in the ground and onions and they were eaten and rotten before producing anything. There is a well-established tree (pear we were told) that did not bear any fruit, which dropped a ton of leaves all over everything.
So my question is, how can I best tend the soil from here out, and especially if there are things I can be doing this winter to get it to its best by the Spring? Our
city actually provides free finished
compost, so one idea was to periodically pick up a truck load and start layering it on, but would that mess up what is going on with the mulch and leaves that are already there? We also have our own compost pile going. I have been collecting charcoal from the
wood stove to get some
biochar going and I'm thinking I
should just be putting some in the compost pile to inoculate it by the Spring, or I could also just layer that on? There are both worms and fungi everywhere all over the
yard so I'm sure they are already well on their way under that mulch layer.
Any input would be much appreciated!
Thanks!
