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Organic Gardening for the 21st Century A Complete Guide to Growing Vegetables, Fruits, Herbs and Flowers

Start an Organic Garden the Easy Way

by Traute Klein, biogardener

Don't waste your time gardening until you have created a productive environment. Here are the preparations which I took to turn solid prairie clay into productive soil.

My Dream

Ever since I trudged along with my dad to help him with his garden, I dreamed of starting a garden right from scratch. Once in a lifetime, every gardener should have the opportunity to see that dream become reality. I did. Mind you, I also saw that dream bulldozed from the face of the earth in a matter of five traumatic hours, but no one can rob me of the memories. And I gained valuable experience in the creation process. I am now convinced that it is possible to create a beautiful organic naturalized Garden of Eden, no matter what the conditions are to start with.

Let me share with you some tips on getting started, tips which I learned by experimenting. The photos were taken during the early days of this creation process.

The Setting

The backyard of the large corner lot was overgrown with weeds and self-seeded trees in the backyard. The front yard was covered in lilacs which had spread to take over the lawn. Neglect was written all over the property. Once a year, the area weed inspector had mowed the supposed lawn and sprayed it with herbicide, which did not make any dent in the healthy dandelion and thistle stand.

What an opportunity! I was free to do as I pleased, as I had always dreamed.

Getting Started

Just before I could get started on the project, I was disabled in a motor vehicle accident. Not being able to continue my occupation as a teacher, I concentrated on the only thing I had left, my gardening dream. Unfortunately, my injuries made regular gardening impossible. With determination, intermingled with many tears, I devised a method which allowed me to work at my level of ability.

The No-Dig Method

Digging up trees, weeds, and lawn was impossible. I therefore decided to choke them to death. Any vegetation will die within a year if kept from breathing. A plastic cover does the trick, but has to be removed before the area can be cultivated. Leaving the plastic in place promotes fungus diseases.

A heavy layer of newspaper works without the need for later removal. I held the newspapers down with compostable material as well as mulch and soil. I covered a comfortably sized area at a time and piled the newspapers and the compostable material on it. I then found some soil which I used to cover the compost. When that cover was at least 10" high, seed could be sown into it or seedlings set. Only above-ground produce was adaptable to this method. No carrots or potatoes. I found that out the hard way. During the first year, I had great potato plants without much underground activity. No matter. I learned from the experience.

I remembered from my childhood on Germany that cucurbits, like pumpkin, cucumber, and squash, can be seeded right into a compost pile. They love the moisture and the decomposition heat. I grew a lot of cucurbits the first few years.

Digging or tilling the soil first is counterproductive, because it brings more weed seeds to the surface.

The Dig Method

As the lawn disappeared and I started to work my way through the garden the second time, I was able to do some digging using a long-handled shovel, which gave me lots of leverage. A 4’ square spot was a comfortable area to work on at one time. I would start with a hole of any depth, depending on the amount of pain I was suffering that week. In that hole, I would throw all compostable material, starting with the coarsest, like tree branches. I paid no attention to the order in which I deposited the material, as long as I had about equal parts of brown, carbon-rich material compared to green, nitrogen-rich material.

When I had a good pile on that hole, I would start digging another hole and use the soil from the second hole to cover the pile in the first. As soon as the soil cover was applied, I would again sow some seeds.

The Raised Bed Method

When I had building material for raised beds, I would place them where they would remain and fill them like a compost bin. They, too, got piled high and were then covered with soil.

This turned out to be my favorite method, because it allowed me to garden without bending down.

The Result

The result was a garden which was totally organic, highly productive, and easily accessible for a person with disabilities, an "enabling garden." I had prepared it for easy gardening in my senior years. My garden did not look like the rest of the neighborhood, however, and zealous civic officials removed it without warning. You can read about the atrocity in Carol Wallace's article, "Paradise Lost - the Tyranny of Conformity," linked in the left column. My gardening days may be over, but I hope that others will profit from my experiences.

© Traute Klein, biogardener