The Walden Effect: Farming, simple living, permaculture, and invention.

Weedless Gardening

Weedless GardeningWeedless Gardening by Lee Reich is another one of those books that made me say, "If only I'd read this two years ago, I wouldn't have had to read a dozen books and try out half a dozen methods on the ground to learn that stuff!"  Then I remembered how much I love to read and experiment, and am glad I saved Lee Reich's book for a day when it would help me streamline my operation rather than giving me a template to copy.

Lee Reich sums up his gardening method with four simple factors

  1. Minimize soil disruption --- Don't till or dig.
  2. Protect the soil surface --- Keep a constant mulch or crop cover.
  3. Avoid soil compaction --- Walk on designated paths
  4. Use drip irrigation

Although our garden operates better with pulsating sprinklers than with drip irrigation, I'm completely in favor of Lee Reich's other three points.  As he explains, keeping the soil surface mulched and the soil structure intact has a heaping handful of benefits, including:

I assume you're all completely sold by now on Lee Reich's weedless gardening method, so I'll spend the rest of this lunchtime series getting down to the nitty gritty.

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This post is part of our Lee Reich's Weedless Gardening lunchtime series.  Read all of the entries:





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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.



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extra air comes in contact with soil particles and sends the decomposing microorganisms into a flurry of activity. They break down the organic matter quickly, with the advantage that some instantly available nutrients are produced for that year's crops. However, most of the nutrients in the organic matter are burned too quickly and turn into gases that leave the soil forever.

i hadn't heard it put quite like that before...modern agriculture...just another one of humanity's forays into "efficicency" from which we must beat a hasty retreat. we got our work cut out for us in the 21st century.

Comment by J Tue Nov 23 01:50:08 2010
I'd never heard it put exactly that way before either, and it made a lot of sense.
Comment by anna Tue Nov 23 08:59:26 2010





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