Scorching the Garden 2018 Follow Up
Every year we grow the peppers and garlic and onions and herbs to make our sauces. Every year we try something new that we hope is better. We ditch something that doesn’t work out. And we repeat and refine those things that promote the completion of our goals. Follow along and steal all our ideas as we Scorch the Garden in 2019.
If we take a look back at the plot last year, the dirt was mostly clay. Our system claimed that it would restore the soil where live would thrive. We only cleared out the pepper bushes, most of the bamboo, and the large pieces of cardboard.
This is what we started with back in June.
We left behind the wood chips, leaves, some bamboo spikes, and fallen, unripe peppers. Nothing that won’t compost.
When we revisited the garden in March after letting it sit since the end of October, there wasn’t much growing. All around, you could see where winter weeds had sprung up, but our plot looked like it did when we left it, but less green.
Did we actually destroy the soil so life can’t exist? Did we completely go against what we set out to do? Did we leave the land worse than how we found it?
Poking around, it was clear that our system had some interesting effects. The weed suppression was surprisingly long lasting. We could not have predicted that.
A thick layer of organic material was now a part of the topsoil that was just underneath some remaining wood chips.
There were bits of cardboard still intact. They were home to fungus and centipedes and millipedes and spiders. Everywhere you looked, there were worm and insect trails, littered with castings.
We moved to a different location from 2018 to 2019, so we couldn’t enjoy the benefits from all this established life for our next grow. Whomever grows on this plot will have definitely an advantage. For us, we will apply our system to the next site and hope for similar results. It would be great if you joined us for our 2019 grow. Thank you.
