Before I can plant either of my new gardens, I need to prep each site. “Site prep” may sound intimidating, but it definitely doesn’t have to be. It just comes in varying degrees of difficulty, and how difficult it is will depend on how you answer these questions:
- How much time do you have?
- How big of a garden are you planning?
- How physically fit are you?
- What condition is the site in now?
- How much work do you want to put into it?
1. How much time do you have?
The amount of time you have or want to devote to prepping your garden site really determines which method you’re going to use. I wanted to start prepping the sites for my new gardens last fall so I could try out the layering method often called the “lasagna” method, but life got in the way, so now I’ll need to just dig things up and get going. Fortunately, native plants are hardy and don’t need a bunch of pampering, and they’re already attuned to my soil conditions.
2. How big of a garden are you planning?
Site prep is one of the biggest reasons why I said in earlier posts to start small. Overambition has killed more garden dreams than anything else. The size of your planned garden combined with the prep method you choose will determine the amount of work you need to put into prepping your site and of course the amount of digging you’ll need to do. Which brings us to the next consideration…
3. How physically fit are you?
Another reason to start small. And another reason to embrace the no-dig practices of regenerative gardening. If you must clear a site and you’re in good shape, you’re set, but again, be careful about overambition. Manage your expectations about how much you can do and how much you want to do. Be realistic about how much you can handle over a few hours or days.
If you’re fortunate enough like me to have a friend or two who are fit and like to dig, that helps a lot, but be realistic about how much work you want to try to get out of them, too. What I just said about overambition applies to friendships, too. It’s not unlike asking them to help you move. Although, like moving, beer and pizza go a long way.
4. What condition is the site in now?
You might have a fairly clear spot picked out, like I have for my back yard garden.
As you can see, the back yard site is already pretty clear. The grass is struggling, and the moss isn’t a big deal. All I’ll really have to do is pull a bunch of weeds and I’m good to go.
The front yard site, however, is covered in nice thick lawn. I’m considering a couple options here based on how much time I want to spend on it and whether my friend is available.
[Photo of front yard site.]
If you have a difficult site, though, like it’s covered in invasive (non-native) trees like buckthorn or full of rocks above ground and/or underground and your plan doesn’t include rocks, you’ll probably want to get them out of there. (But if they’re nice looking rocks, hang onto them. You can use them to add some interest in your garden later by putting them where you want them.)
Maybe you want to restore an abandoned urban lot that’s covered in junk and debris. You’ll want to clear that out, too. A project that size is going to take time and planning, probably a group of people to help, and possibly permission from the city. Certainly permission from whoever owns the lot. You’ll also need a means of carting the junk away, like a truck or two, and you may even need to bring in a big pile of fresh compost to jumpstart the soil’s recovery.
But consider also what’s under the surface. Take for instance that vacant urban lot. Many times when an old building is knocked down, the rubble is just shoved into its basement, then a layer of dirt is thrown on top to make things level. If that top layer of dirt is thin, there won’t be much for the plants to latch onto, plus it could be a safety hazard as you dig down and run into broken glass and bricks, impropertly disposed-of waste, like cleaning chemicals or refrigerators, and who knows what else. It’s a good idea to find these things out first, especially if you plan on planting anything that would be eaten. The soil itself could be laced with lead and other contaminants. I don’t think there are too many sites that can’t be redeemed with time and work, but if your site is one of those, don’t despair. You can always do containers and raised beds.
Wherever you are, though, if you soil is just universally crappy, you have the option of bringing soil in, but that might not be the type of soil the native plants you’ve picked out are native to. It can also be very expensive to bring in lots of fresh dirt. I would suggest that you first think about whether the plants you’ve picked out can survive in the lousy soil you have. After all, one of the points of this little project is to learn how to improve your soil over time. Study the results of your soil test so you know what’s going on in your soil, then check with your local Extension agent or garden center horticulturist. You might find that your plants will be just fine. Dandelions aren’t the only plants that thrive in tough places. A site that looks terrible right now might be teeming with life in just a couple years!
5. How much work do you want to put into it now and in the future?
This is where the other four factors come together. How much do you enjoy hard, physical work? A lot? Then go for it! Not much? Then consider scaling back the size of your garden or switching to containers. Do you want something that’s plug and play? Then make sure the plants you pick are going to be okay in the soil and light conditions you have. Do you want to do something a little more hands-on and sciencey? Then plan on getting things started this summer with the goal of ongoing work on improving the health of your soil. Remember, be realistic. If you don’t want to put a lot of work into it, then be cool with that decision and keep your garden small, at least to begin with. Once you’ve gotten some experience, you may decide to go bigger.
Methods to our madness
So on to site prep methods. I’d call for a drumroll here, but it just isn’t all that dramatic. I’ll just go at them based on the amount of time and effort they require.
I would have liked to start with what’s called the lasagna method last fall, but it’s also the one that requires the most time. If you’re not planning to plant anything this year, you could try this method yet this spring.
The lasagna method is probably the friendliest to the climate and the soil. It’s no-dig and simply involves layering cardboard, newspapers, green plant matter, brown plant matter, and compost over your site, then leaving it all to break down over time. I’ll try and find a graphic to illustrate this and there are plenty of resources online and in books that go into this method in much greater detail, but here it is in a nutshell:
• Cardboard: boxes, etc., broken down flat into a single layer with all tape and stickers removed. Cardboard, like anything made of something once living, will add lovely carbon to the soil as it breaks down for your microbes to feed off of.
• Newspapers: also add carbon. Use only the newsprint sections, not the glossy supplements, and preferably torn into strips.
• Green plant matter and brown plant matter: basically, grass clippings or other fresh plant waste and dead leaves. These add a healthy amount of carbon, plus the grass clippings add some nitrogen to the mix. Be careful, though, that you don’t add grass clippings that have been sprayed recently with herbicide (weed killer) that could harm your plants or the soil life. Also, avoid things with weed seeds (like grass clippings full of dandelion heads), or you may be facing a lot of weed pulling later on. Keep diseased plant waste out, too. Although your native plants should be pretty disease-resistant, it’s just good practice to dispose of diseased plant waste in the garbage or in a compost pile that you know for sure is generating enough heat to kill the pathogens. Also, keep out sticks. These take far too long to break down and will just be a nuisance.
• Compost: you can get this in bags at a garden center or in bulk from landscaping places, or if you have a friend who knows how to care for a compost pile, you’re in business. Compost not only adds nice organic matter, it will hopefully add a lot of the microbial life you’ll want working in your soil.
Once you have these components ready, layer them on. I’m not sure if it matters what order they’re in, but the thicker your layers of “inert” material, like cardboard and dead leaves and newspapers, the longer it will take for it to break down and the longer a time horizon you’ll need. We’re talking months if not a year. If you’re doing several alternating layers, sprinkle some water to dampen up the layers as you go to help the process.
Now, that’s the full-blown lasagna method, which I have never tried. For my garden in the front yard, I would have gone for something simpler last fall. I would have tried scalping the site down with the mower (being sure to not bag the clippings unless they were full of dandelions) and smother the site with a single layer of cardboard and torn-up newspapers to finish off the grass. Then this spring, I would just cut holes in whatever was left of the covering, plant my plants directly in, then mulch the whole thing with another layer of newspaper (not torn up but in sheets to block weeds) and a layer of wood chips.
The advantage of the lasagna method or variations thereof is that the various ingredients feed the soil life while smothering any unwanted plant life, leaving you a clean palette to work with, and it keeps the soil covered, preventing the carbon already in the soil from escaping into the atmosphere. Even the quick-and-dirty version I was planning does all that.
Since I couldn’t get that done, I’ll probably just scrape the sod off like I did with last year’s site, plant and mulch. Scraping off the sod and exposing the soil isn’t ideal. This, after all, is how carbon escapes into the atmosphere from all those bare farm fields, and I’m trying to get carbon into the soil, not release it out.
In my case, though, I’m managing a very small space, maybe 20 square feet, and it won’t be bare for long. That’s key. I’ll get the plants first, then I’ll scrape off the grass, plant them and cover the open ground with mulch. Heck, I might just dig holes in the grass and put in my plants, then cover the grass with newspapers and mulch.
And that’s about it. See, site prep takes work, but it’s not complicated.
But what about adding fertilizer and tilling and all that stuff?! you say.
That’s the beauty of working with native plants and gardening with regenerative methods. If you find the right plant for your soil, the plant will need very little care, including fertilizer, because everything it needs is already there, no additional fertilizer required. You may need to work on improving your soil’s health, and we’ll cover that in future posts, but as long as you’ve done your soil test so you know what kind of soil you’re dealing with, its pH, its organic matter content, etc., you and your native plants should be good.
And as for tilling, that’s out. Tilling not only turns over the soil, releasing carbon into the air and depleting its organic content, it also does serious damage to the microbes in your soil. From the research I’m reading, tilling should be avoided at all costs. If you’re dealing with extreme Texas-style hardpan soil, you may want to consider containers anyway. But they have native plants in Texas, too. I’ll do a little research on that and see what’s recommended there.
I’m going to get going on prepping my sites now that the weather is warming up. Let me know how your sites are going, too, and any questions you may have!