How to start a "Lazy Vegetable Garden" easier than permaculture: steps and advice

[Christophe]

I realize that other than a few brave ones, no one reads the "big thread" tote. I am often asked questions that have already been answered.

Yes I am aware of it and I put it in ps in the 1st message.

Your "big thread" was especially useful for discussing, monitoring, correcting and validating your method, in short "setting it up" ... and for this I think it did its job right? Not sure that you would have gone so far without the little motivation that this subject gave you ... (well, it motivates me to talk about a project with others)

The fact is that a topic of almost 2000 responses will necessarily discourage most newcomers (only a weak% highly motivated will get started like some new arrivals in recent weeks), hence the need for a summary FAQ ... I've been talking about it for a while and I really insist on putting it in place (so that you don't have to repeat the same thing all the time: you know I have known this with doping water).

A lot of questions !

I'm not all put to me, too! This is not to say I do not have an answer !!!

To make an FAQ you need the questions. And you just said it, some questions are new ... hence the interest of a "community" preparation of these FAQs .... like this subject on the "beginning of the vegetable garden" ...

[Did67]

Yes and Yes !!!

Yes, the "big thread" made it possible to launch this business. It started from nothing, casually! He motivated me to take the photos, then the videos. It sometimes motivated me to do more research. This can remain as a site for debates and "contributions" which do not fit into a precise framework.

The FAQ series would be "technical": either like this one, synthesize the "method" around a practice (this would be the "Testify" series), or like the series on worms, drowned, in the "main thread "or the one on humus, started only, to take stock of knowledge (It would be the series:" Learn ") ...

[Christophe]

Here we agree!

It remains to organize and coordinate everything, since we already have a lot of questions / answers ... and other questions could come as is the case here!

Thank you again for your initiative and work!

[Did67]

If you can, for reasons of "communication", I suggest you start all the threads (as I do for all the videos on Youtube) with "Le Potager du Laesseux: ...."

So here: "Le Potager du Laesseux: how to start in practice?"

[Did67]

and what about when thick layer of BRF? ground wood still leaves less air pass as hay, right?

it may remain damp and cold down there in the spring ... particularly in case of clay soil.

1) The BRF, in my judgment, does not let the air "pass" less; it remains much more "porous", settles less ...

On the other hand, in a thick layer, it is necessary to think about correcting the depressive effect generated by this large mass of organic matter rich in C (carbon) and very poor in N (nitrogen). The organisms, to "treat" this mass, will borrow a lot of nitrogen from the soil ... This is the main drawback of BRF in a thick layer!

2) Yes. Under the layers of organic matter, without there being undoubtedly large differences, it remains wet and cold ... We generally take 15 days to 3 weeks late. Of which, in a normal year, we catch up with a part that was not summer because it dries less, and a part that does not fall, because the soil stays warmer longer (but beware: sensitive aerial plants, such as beans, can take frost on the aerial part!). Vegetables that withstand the cold on the surface (chicory, chews, turnips ...) continue to grow almost until the first snow ...

3) This has been mentioned elsewhere, but I hang it up here: part of the solution consists of preparing the plants in boxes (terrines) and transplanting them once the earth has warmed up. Knowing that if some vegetables transplant very well (salads, red beets), others not (carrots). I haven't tried everything yet! Turnips? beans?

And it's a bit of lost laziness ...

[Did67]

So if I understand correctly, we must not use "small grass" mowing waste, therefore of the lawn type (when it is maintained lol).

... / ...

I understand that it was the lack of air grass clippings which did not allow the use of lawn waste but a mixture hay / grass should not let bad air ...

Is it possible to mix 2 to boot? In what proportion? 1 / 2? 1 / 3?

I could use this "starter" vegetable patch to experiment ... like a 100% hay, 1/3 sod, and a 1/2 strip? And see what it looks like in a few months?

subsidiary question in one of your last video you said that you let grass strips for certain animal species any hay width recommended you 2 between bands turf?

1) Lawn mowing mainly raises the question of "too much nitrogen" / a boost to bacterial mechanisms to the detriment of the rest (bacteria and fungi are always a little antagonistic).

The hay is already balanced and rich in nitrogen. Hence no depressive effect.

Hence useless, even risky, to mix grass (or any very fermentable fresh organic matter).

It is rich in cellulose, which is also suitable for fungi. And that starts the production of humus - sorry, "humic substances".

2) Grass clippings, rich in N (nitrogen), are a good complement to substrates poor in N and too rich in C: sawdust or shavings, straws, coconut fibers, cocoa pods ...

There, by mixing a rich material and a poor material, we manage to restore a balance.

3) This is the complexity of living things: a C / N balance must be respected; cellulose and lignin must be provided to also boost the fungi and initiate the synthesis of humic substances; it must be avoided that it settles; it must not decompose too quickly, otherwise the ground is found bare; it should not decompose in winter otherwise the nitrates go into the water ...

There are no ideal solutions. Only the least bad compromises.

In the intro (provisional) of my book (under construction), I wrote that the way of doing things (a lazy vegetable garden) is simple. The mechanisms behind 'a formidable complexity, at the limit of what I am able to explain and what a forumeur can understand. Basically, it's like driving a car: reduced to changing gears and turning on the turn signals, it's very simple ... If you want to understand what is happening at all times, direct injection, the calculator, the explosion, valves, etc etc ... it gets tougher!

Hay is a good compromise in itself.

The mixture of straw / mowing or sawdust / mowing another ... what I sometimes call a "substitute" for hay.

4) The bandwidths: each to his taste.

I think that below 1,5 m, we "lose" space. It is necessary to maintain the edges a little (the clovers, for example, "invade" the boards ...). You can pick or act from both sides, without stepping on it too much.

For the grass strip, it is the width of the mower with a little margin ... For a maintenance ... lazy!

[Did67]

Thin one aspect which I have not thought of my future garden lazy is directly exposed to the prevailing wind (West over its width), and as can blow not bad, it will not ask worries as hay n is not quite packed (the first month so)?

Solution? Put a ballast type cartons and some stones? Worries: it may run out of air? Or so I let (small) bands in the air?

At my place too, it is exposed in the west, at the end of a wind corridor ...

The solution: spread the hay just before a rain! When wet, it is heavy and stays in place. Or water it if you have reclaimed water ... I've never had hay "flown".

PS: in the materials to be associated with mowing, there are dead leaves. But there, it flies. I tackled the ground with an anti-bird net stretched with tent pegs.

[Julienmos]

3) part of the solution consists of preparing the plants in boxes (terrines) and transplanting them once the soil has warmed up. Knowing that if some vegetables transplant very well (salads, red beets), others not (carrots). I haven't tried everything yet! Turnips? beans?

I can testify that red beets can be sown in small pots, then transplanted (do not wait too long, because they develop a fairly long root).
I did it this year, after my seedlings in the open ground were mercilessly devoured by the gentry. And now I have very nice beets ...

(damn, I realize that this post is useless since you mentioned beets)

[Did67]

The red beets, I transplanted them "bare roots", without problem: torn where the slugs had not touched them and where I had sown too dense and replanted in the "holes" where it had not emerged or where the slugs had gone ... As a "bonus", this allows the harvest to be staggered: the transplants were late!

[Did67]

(damn, I realize that this post is useless since you mentioned beets)

On the contrary: testimonies which confirm - or disprove - advance the schmilblic ...

I invite everyone to first doubt what I write, but to try on a little bit. Then to judge for himself ...