Published: 05/14/2021

Ever since I went vegan last November I’ve had this desire to grow my own food. Sitting in-front of 160 sq ft of space and 67 packets of seeds, I may have done something beyond crazy. Or could be a delicious adventure.

The adventure begins

I joined the community garden and quickly joined the social media. Not surprisingly, most of the people who tend the gardens are old or retired or both. Except one young woman, I don’t know her name, but last year at 17 she had one of the most successful crops in the 20 year history of the gardens. I had to know what she did, it was her first year after all.

No Till Gardening

Apparently there is a way to not ever till the garden or work the soil and if you follow the back to eden method, never even have to water. Colorado is dry, so watering once or twice a week is what I’m hoping will be enough, but never? Some people are crazy.

The few benefits of no till garden boils down to:

The challenges are:

How to build a no dig garden

  1. You figure out the plot and size of it, for me it was 8’ x 20’

  2. You gather a TON of cardboard. Enough to cover the entire ground.

  3. Once you have the cardboard, you lay it down. Completely covering the ground.

  4. Next you throw down mulch or compost. I chose mulch because it was free and in large supply nearby

  5. Throw down compost

  6. Throw down top soil

  7. Optional, more mulch (I am skipping this step)

Oh man, oh man is it a lot of work. I carried nearly 2000 pounds of compost, soil and mulch to the garden. I think I have a light sun burn on my neck.

Here’s a picture of where I have landed:

What’s next?

Well, I’m following the sqaure foot gardening method and I’ve come up with a breakdown of how I’m going to plant and update.

I’ll share more photos and update you all soon on how the plants are growing.