no dig garden

karenmcccc

the weather has been so good I decided to start a no dig flower bed o my lawn. I laid cardboard, newspaper, seaweed manure bags and compost. will this be enough to plant to produce a flower bed without grass coming through. plan to start plantinng in the late spring.
What do you think? should I cover the bed with plastic to help decomposing?

Lumen

Wouldn't bother with the plastic. What are you going to plant?

my3cents

No dig is normally an ongoing thing not the way you start off. If there is a pan layer or compaction of the soil then if you don't dig at the beginning its not going to improve.

karenmcccc

Lumen wrote: »

Wouldn't bother with the plastic.
I'm planning on planting lavender and Ornamental Grasses. What do you think?

my3cents

Lavender if you are planting more than one plant does best in very well drained soil so a raised bed is often better for it.

Lumen

If you don't mind a bit of a scruffy result (no dig tends to be anyway) you can cut out slabs of turf and use them as the walls of the raised bed.

That way you're not leaving a hard layer of grass roots between your soil and the bed.

Here's one of my recent hurried experiments (I also had some oak sleepers lying around but they wouldn't be necessary for a shallow bed on flat ground). It's only temporary until I've regraded the garden to bring the soil level up to the top of the bed.

Hocus Focus

Plenty of useful info on this site, and you can sign up for monthly updates, planting calendars etc.;

www.charlesdowding.co.uk

(Does'nt work on a click, you'll have to copy it into your browser)

Esel

Hocus Focus wrote: »

Plenty of useful info on this site, and you can sign up for monthly updates, planting calendars etc.;

www.charlesdowding.co.uk

(Does'nt work on a click, you'll have to copy it into your browser)

Touch site needs the http:// prefix to work

http://www.charlesdowding.co.uk

Hocus Focus

Esel wrote: »

Touch site needs the http:// prefix to work

http://www.charlesdowding.co.uk

You live and learn:)

macraignil

karenmcccc wrote: »

Lumen wrote: »

Wouldn't bother with the plastic.
I'm planning on planting lavender and Ornamental Grasses. What do you think?

Lavender seems to prefer less nutrient in the ground from what I have seen with plants doing well in my garden growing out of stony places with very little soil. In richer ground it seems to thrive less and get overtaken by other plants to some extent so be careful that you do not allow your ornamental grasses overtake your lavender. Some ornamental grasses grow to a fairly big eventual size so make sure to check how big the ones you buy are supposed to get to.

Weeds might also be a problem with the nutrient rich mixture you have used to start your flower bed. Weed seeds are likely to find their way in that can take advantage of the nutrient rich conditions better than lavender so you'll need to be vigilant to remove these before they become a problem. Some other garden plants will provide a more vigorous ground cover and so weeding would be less of a chore but the fragrance of lavender is a great addition to the garden if you can get it established.

PermaC

Hi karenmcccc! You and I both fairly new here and on the same path, by the look of it.

I ordered wood for raised beds from a very good Irish company. [Details if you pm me] Assembled the raised beds myself and filled them up much as you have done.

So far so good - hardly any weeds! But with the advent of Spring, I expect plenty to pop up. Nothing for it but the hoe, I think.

I have marked out the beds in square foot sections with twine stretched around nails in the wooden sides of the beds. Have you heard of square foor gardening?

Hocus Focus

no need for nails,

PermaC wrote: »

Hi karenmcccc! You and I both fairly new here and on the same path, by the look of it.

I ordered wood for raised beds from a very good Irish company. [Details if you pm me] Assembled the raised beds myself and filled them up much as you have done.

So far so good - hardly any weeds! But with the advent of Spring, I expect plenty to pop up. Nothing for it but the hoe, I think.

I have marked out the beds in square foot sections with twine stretched around nails in the wooden sides of the beds. Have you heard of square foor gardening?

No need for nails. Staples worked fine for me. Unfortunately I tried square foot gardening in a polytunnel and it became totally overcrowded. I think it will only work outside.

xckjoo

I've had good success using old car tyres for raised beds. Cut the side-wall off, flip them inside out and then stack and fill with soil. No mess with preserving them and your local tyre centre will probably be delighted to offload some so they're free.