Amateur garden

Technical articles - Living soil agronomy

It is important for us that everyone reclaims the living by cultivating small areas, and performs all the simple gestures of the Living Soil Garden. That is why we offer here a quick reminder of gardening techniques for individuals. This paragraph is also intended for readers who wish to arrange flower beds or install a garden at their acquaintances' places.

Thriving meadow

For an individual, the simplest is to start with a meadow. If it grows taller than 1 m in June, you can start directly by installing a tarp or cardboard. You then plant all the vegetable seedlings (tomatoes, eggplants, squashes, cabbages, potato, etc.) one month after laying the plastic cover or cardboard.

The following year, you can remove the tarp or leave the cardboard in place to carry out all the sowings (carrots, beetroots, Corn salad, spinach, …) and vegetables with low spacing (onions, shallots, leek, lettuce, celery, …).

Poorly fertile soils

If in June the growth is weak (less than 50 cm tall) and you are eager to cultivate, you need to revive the soils by a carbon input. Beware of lawns that have been mowed too regularly or soils near buildings that have been mixed with rubble during construction. These soils are very poorly fertile. To revive a soil in a short time and cultivate quickly,

you have two options :

Make a large carbon input (5 to 10 cm of wood chips mixed with 5 cm of a nitrogenous material such as grass clippings or poultry manure or shredded green waste with C/N of 20-30 over 15 cm). Mix this material into the soil using a rototiller. You can cultivate a few weeks after the input.
Make a gentle revival by regularly adding carbon amendments (15 cm of straw or hay, 5 cm of shredded green waste) to feed the soil biology AND nitrogen to feed the plant (5 cm of grass clippings, 2 cm of fresh manure, 200 kg/ha of starter fertilizer, etc.). Indeed, without nitrogen in addition to the carbon inputs, the plant does not find enough nutrients to feed itself during the first 3 to 5 years. Once the amendment is done, you can cultivate as soon as the soil is well weeded. A tarp or cardboard can greatly help in this task.

Management over time

Do not forget to water young seedlings or plantings well during dry weather. All that remains is to harvest. Do not hesitate to use cultivation on tarp or cardboard to manage weed growth without wasting time whenever it returns (every 2 to 4 years). Cultivation on tarp or cardboard weeds and produces!

To go further

Books

Many books have been published recently for amateur gardeners. We recommend the following :

My fabulous garden in permaculture - Marie Chioca - Terre Vivante
Successful lazy gardener’s vegetable garden - An anti-guide for free gardeners - Didier Helmstetter - Tana Editions
A (super) productive vegetable garden - Antoine the gardener - Albin Michel

Videos

YouTube channels