how to maintain the paths between beds - The soil is stony clay
Hans Albert Quistorff, LMT projects on permies Hans Massage Qberry Farm magnet therapy gmail hquistorff
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Hans Quistorff wrote:
how to maintain the paths between beds - The soil is stony clay
My suggestion is use stones. That is a permaculture principle the solution is usually in the problem.
I have very wet winters so pathways close to my house are a problem. My solution was to remove all rocks from my sandy/grave soil and use them in my pathways. [there is no rocks in my area of clay soil so rock had to be imported to make a road across it 100 years ago]
My suggestion is to double dig the pathways and reserve the soil and put the rocks in he path then double dig the bed putting the rocks in the path and the reserved soil in the bed with added composted material. Possibly adding uncomposted branches and wood in the bottom of the double dug trench to elevate the bed above winter water and provide water reservoir for summer drought.
I have a large field of grass in the clay area which I mow and fill wet swales with in the winter which starts the composting action In the spring I gather that for compost which can be finished by miking with green clippings. dry grass clippings are used for surface mulch.
If you do not have lawn areas as a resource then try to enlist neighbors who do and chouse not to garden.
Nancy Reading wrote:Grass paths between garden beds are a perfectly fine idea. They have the advantage of creating a 'living root' and beetle habitat adjacent to your growing area. Check out this excerpt from the Garden Master course: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fp0d6vVzQ8. Helen also mows her paths and puts the mowings straight onto her garden beds to feed the soil microbes directly, so there are lots of advantages.
As I understand your post, you are wondering how to keep the paths from getting too muddy and losing the resiliance of turf when trodden on more intensively.
I suppose the thing to do is to think of it as a very small lawn.
# Improve drainage: This might be awkward if you are going to have raised beds, since the paths in between will become streams in wet weather. however small ditches (I'm thinking just a trowel width/depth) between bed and path may help a bit. The traditional thing to do with wet lawns is to poke holes in them and back fill the holes with sand.
# Cut grass longer: Just slightly longer ought to give it a bit of resilliance to foot treading.
# Sow more hardwearing grass: There are different grass seeds available for lawns. Maybe you can find one that is more suited to a wet / high traffic area and oversow into the existing sward.
It will help if you make the paths the same width as your lawnmower will cut as well
You may find still that certain areas which get most traffic will still get too muddy, and you might want to strategically resurface locally as has been suggested above.
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