Permaculture garden 2.0

I've recently realized my garden just wasn't working for me. It's overrun with weeds, the soil is terrible, and  the paths and beds aren't straight. It's like a maze: impossible to irrigate and hardly growing anything.

I decided to level it and start over. I just finished clearing out all of the big rocks, and now I'm cleaning up the old woodchips and ripping up the old landscape paper (which the weeds had grown through).

Any advice? Am I doing it wrong? What should my next steps be?

I was thinking I could mow the weeds down and then cover with new (better quality) landscape paper.

Hi Allen, it is always difficult to know where to start...Usually the first step is observation:

So you know how your site grows with the way you were treating it before. If it is growing good weeds that isn't too bad soil! What sort of weeds are they? If those have been a problem, then a better management style for those is probably needed.

I'd also ask what is left of your plants that you want to keep?

Basics like site aspect (sun direction and exposure) climate zone and rainfall are helpful, as are your aspirations for the area: What do you want to get out and what are you prepared to put in in financial and labour contributions. How much time do you have, it that seasonal or only on exstablishment?

For me permaculture is about making connections, not just as people, but with the other resources we have around us. This helps to work with our situation rather than against it - for example are the plants you choose appropriate for your climate or will they need special protection? Are you going to walk through the garden everyday to work, or drive to it twice a year? So many questions

Are most of your plants annuals or perennials?  If annuals then it is easy to start over.

For perennials, a thick layer of mulch will keep the weeds at bay.  I am not sure what landscape paper is?  Is it necessary if you apply a thick layer of mulch?

Straight beds make watering and harvesting easy.

I wish you the best for undertaking this task.

The most problematic weeds are wild lettuce (lactuca), pigweed (amaranthus) and something which is I think is skeletonweed (chondrilla juncea), as well as crabgrass. I had mulch down before, but they seemed to grow through it without a problem, especially the wild lettuce and the crabgrass.

Before you mow the weeds down, use an app to identify the weeds you have on your property. Get the book "when weeds talk", it has a table that shows what nutrient deficiencies the weeds indicate. For instance, if you have 10 weeds and they all indicate low calcium, probably adding lime/gypsum (depending on your property) would help you with your soil

M

Allen Carlson wrote:The most problematic weeds are wild lettuce (lactuca), pigweed (amaranthus) and something which is I think is skeletonweed (chondrilla juncea), as well as crabgrass. I had mulch down before, but they seemed to grow through it without a problem, especially the wild lettuce and the crabgrass.

Your mulch was not thick enough.  Try at least a 6 inch layer of mulch.

The first thing that jumped out to me was "the soil is terrible." That's where I'd start.
Nancy brought up some good questions, and those answers would determine what I'd do with the soil. If the soil isn't suitable for the plants you want to grow, then everything else will prove to be an uphill battle.

For example, wild blackberries have taken over where I want to eventually grow annual veggies. I *could* rip out the blackberries, add mulch, and plant annual veggies. But...all of those blackberries are telling me the soil is compacted, low in organic matter, and likely acidic. The soil in that area is conducive mostly for plants that can barrel through it, like the roots of blackberries. Annual veggies would suffer and die in that, and the blackberries would shoot straight through the mulch and nearly any barrier. For the moment, I'm cutting down the blackberries and adding as much organic matter as I can. Other "weeds" are starting to fill in so it's not a monocrop, and that's a good sign.