With public events cancelled and coronavirus spreading it's a great time to tackle a new project in your garden.
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Gardening expert and Orange mayor Reg Kidd, who has just celebrated 30 years of having his own gardening talk back program on ABC Radio, said a no-dig garden was a handy addition to your yard.
He said no-dig gardens could be built almost anywhere in your yard to grow your own vegetables.
HOW TO DO IT
On the ground
- Select a site, preferably in a sunny position
- Build a box frame with boards or bricks
- Place a 5 to 10 millimetre thick layer of newspaper (not cardboard or glossy magazine paper) at the bottom of the frame. Overlap the paper so there are no gaps
- Cover with pads of lucerne hay as they come off the bale
Constructing the bed
- Sprinkle on a dusting of organic fertiliser
- Cover with 20 centimetres of loose straw
- Scatter some fertiliser onto this layer
- Tip a layer of rich compost 10 centimetres deep and about 45 centimetres in diameter in places where seeds are to be planted and that's it.
KEEPING IT GOING
- Do not dig a no-dig garden. It is unnecessary and detrimental to the process. Simply replace new layers of compost,manure, lucerne and newspaper when necessary
- Rotate your crops.
WHAT TO PLANT
- Autumn crops include carrots,onions, cauliflower or cabbage, peas, radish, broad beans, bok choy, spinach, leek or broccoli.
- Winter crops could include pea,snow pea,spinach and garlic cloves.
- Coming into spring you will find that the bed that layers of the garden will have composted and merged into each other.
- Add another layer of compost and plant your spring vegetables such as French, climbing or scarlet runner beans, beetroot, carrot, corn, pumpkin, radish, squash, cabbage, capsicum, celery, cucumber, eggplant, lettuce, silver beet, tomatoes and zucchini. Set in potato tubers.
- Cr Kidd said in summer, depending on weather conditions) you can plant more of your spring vegetables.
ENJOY
Cr Kidd said weeding would be minimal with a no-dig garden.
And he recommended you should water it in the early morning when evaporation is at its lowest.