Setting up an organic garden
What are the steps in setting up a working ecological garden? How do you do that?
Step 1: find the right spot
Before we designed our garden, we were looking for the best spot. Observe your land!
We found a spot on a slight slope, south facing, surrounded by elderberry and hazelnut shrubs. Those shrubs now give shelter and food for many birds, that keep the slugs out of our garden!
Step 2: Design your garden
Why? Because it is easier to prevent mistakes than to repair damage.
On a paper design you can see what trees/shrubs/big vegetables will block out the sun for the smaller veggies behind it. You can also plan in detail when & where you plant what, what goes well together (companion pants) and how much plants you need for your space.
Step 3: Cheap and lazy preparation of garden beds
The first thing that we did, was finding the more flat spots and cover them with newspapers and cardboard. We put logs around to mark the beds. On the cardboard we put potatoes, covered with mulch.
Over time, these layers killed the grass and the weeds (because they didn't get any light), and decomposed. The potatoes grew down through the paper and did some loosening up of the soil.
Year round vegetables
Bogata Suma's garden feeds us all year round with fruits, vegetables and herbs. When we store the harvest well, we have plenty.
Our garden is based on permacultural principles. The general idea is that we have less work and a big yield. Big in variety and enough to feed us and our volunteers. It is a no till polyculture garden, mulched with straw from the rabbits, where plant combinations help each other in their ecological community. We use crop rotation, cover crops and compost.
>> More about the garden
Protect your veggies
Around the garden we are growing a living fence. It is made of wood cuttings from pruning and there are all kinds of berries growing in and against it. In that way it is not only protecting our vegetables, but also producing fruit!
>> More about the living fence
Forest garden
A low maintenance edible "forest" with all kinds of fruits, herbs and perennial vegetables. It is a layered area with berry shrubs under fruit trees, thyme on the paths, edible flowers next to it...
>> More about the forest gardens
