Week 1 of garden trial

The two gardens have now been going for a week and its's time for the first update...

Sieved Soil Garden

This garden is predominantly used for plants whose seeds are directly planted. These include peas, beans, radishes, carrots, giant red mustard, mizuna (an asian green), lettuce and chinese broccoli (Kai laan). The climbing plants are at the back. The two plants you can see are oregano and Italian parsley that have been planted as seedlings.

The big development in this garden is the arrival of the first germinated seedlings. So far, radish (front left), rocket (back left, trust me -it's there), chinese broccoli and mizuna have made their first appearances yesterday. This is a wonderful time in a garden, you can go back a few times a day and see significant changes every time. Now we just need the frosts to hold off for a few days...

The other plants should make an appearance over the next week or two.

The no-dig bed

While the other bed is off to a flying start, the no-dig garden is in a "bedding down" phase. It must be left 2-3 weeks before plants can be introduced. You can see cracks and unevenness in the surface. These are where air and moisture have been able to get down into the lucerne layer and it is starting to degrade. In the process it gives off a slight odour and the garden warms up due to the heat from the rotting process (this is why plants can't be introduced yet).

One good thing about setting up a no-dig garden in winter is that the risk of self-combustion is lower. On the hottest day of summer here last year, one of my friends here had her no-dig garden dry out a bit too much on top and start to smoulder from the heat being generated from below.

The plants in this garden will be predominantly seedlings - spring onions, garlic chives, rosemary, golden marjoram, strawberry, tomatoes and capsicum. The rest will be filled up with greens. Those seedlings being grown from seed are already in their biodegradable newspaper pots, waiting on the worst of winter to pass before being put out.

I am loving this, in one garden I am cheering on new life, in the other I am waiting for the decay to happen before new life can be introduced. These are both key processes in gardening, and also in life...