r/Permaculture • u/spookmansss • 1d ago
look at my place! Lazy permaculture garden on horrible soil
This was my first ever year having a garden and what a year it has been! My area has horrible soil (basically pure sand) so last year in februari we dumped a bunch of woodchips in the back. No till no weed barrier no nothing.
I just started planting a bunch of vegetables without too much thought along with some fruit trees. In April I just put a bunch of potatoes in between the woodchips.
Now in oktober I've seen the results. We've eten zucchini and tomatoes all summer. We now have pumpkins and cabbage to pick from. I also grew some cool stuff like aji Peppers and artichokes. We haven't bought Veggies from the store all summer and we are homecooking vegetarians so that should tell you something ðŸ¤
Moral of the story, you really don't need a lot of work, knowledge or effort to get something. Just woodchips. Even if your soil isn't ideal. I came from traditional vegetable gardening where by juli you'd be pulling out your hair because your whole garden would be a weedy mess. This was a dream in comparison.
This fall/winter i will be planting more trees and transitioning to edible landscaping. A bit more ornamental but with edible or beneficial plants. I will post an update next year but I'd love to show that permaculture can be compatible with urban garden and ornamental landscape and get it to more people's gardens.
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u/Dumpster-cats-24 1d ago
This is the vibe! Congratulations on your harvest and may your garden be even less effort in the future!
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u/paratethys 1d ago
fantastic! what a breath of fresh air compared to the "if i don't put every plant in the PRECISELY PERFECT SPOT perhaps it'll be horrible" posts ;)
the next level of lazy gardening here is building your seed bank so that your favorite annuals show up each year without even needing your attention to plant them. kale, parsley, radishes, tomatillo, and calendula are among my most vigorous self-seeders at the moment, but you'll probably have your own set of volunteers if you let things go to seed.
another technique you might enjoy, which i probably ought to write up sometime, is the "catcher bed". with bees, you put an empty ("catcher") hive out in a good spot, and sometimes a swarm shows up. With veggies, if you skip planting/mulching part of a bed and just leave the soil bareish (a thin layer of biomass on top is fine; watering will hurry it along if you don't get rain), then whatever's in the seed bank of that soil will grow itself up. If you check the catcher bed weekly or so and pull out any plants that are clearly something you don't need any more of, whatever is left over in it will be interesting and often desirable for the garden.
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u/spookmansss 1d ago
I've been doing this with pumpkins. Sometimes I get lucky with tomatoes as well. Got some radishes already growing out of the lawn haha.
I'm also trying to save whatever seeds I can. I swear I spent half a fortune on seeds the first year, but hopefully it'll be cheaper next year.
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u/Sad-Coat-1397 1d ago
What a great first year on pure sand. I would keep those woodchips as a surface mulch and never dig them in, or they tie up nitrogen right where the potato roots feed. Sand's real problem is holding water and nutrients, so this fall I would spread compost under the chips and sow a cover crop: crimson clover or field peas for nitrogen, winter rye to catch what leaches through. Chop and drop it next spring.
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u/dllre 1d ago
You know what? You're on the right track. Make it fun and workable, not hard. Keep adding organic matter and over time your soil will hold the water and nutrients it needs.
Keep on keeping on!