How to Have a Self Composting No Dig Garden

No dig gardening is gaining popularity with organic farmers and gardeners. No dig gardening saves you in labor and helps revitalize your soil. Not to mention the added benefits of little to no weeding! This method of gardening creates nutrient rich garden beds that encourage your plants to grow to their fullest potential.

This method of self composting, no dig gardening is so easy even a complete gardening novice can handle it.

The first thing you want to do is obtain or build raised garden beds. They can be large or small, whatever suits your gardening needs. Next you'll need to gather quite a bit of newspaper, hay, straw, compost, and garden soil.

Inside each raised garden bed spread out 2 - 3 layers of newspapers on the ground. Make sure the ground is completely covered to smother weeds and sod underneath. Next spread a 1 - 2 inch layer of hay over newspaper, follow that with a layer of straw 1 - 2 inches thick. In a large container or wheelbarrow, mix compost and garden soil well. Shovel 1 - 2 inches of compost soil mixture over the straw layer. The compost will encourage earthworms to visit your garden beds. Earthworms add oxygen to the garden beds by digging channels through the beds. This aerates your soil and keeps it lightweight for plant roots growing into the soil. If your soil is too compacted plant roots have a harder time moving through the soil and can become stunted or even die. So earthworms are very important to have in your garden.

Now if you built rather tall raised garden beds you may have to shovel in more compost and soil until your beds are filled near the top. If you have enough room, repeat the layering steps instead.

Now what you have done is create a rich compost pile under your garden bed. Those layers will compost together and produce rich nutrients for your plants to feast on all season long. To maintain your beds, just add more compost and soil as needed. Never turn or mix your self composting beds. This destroys all the work you did. Your garden beds will stop composting together once they are mixed. This is really a "set it and forget it" method of composting and gardening. You provide the base work, the layers, and your garden takes care of the rest.

If you do this self composting no dig gardening method in the early spring, by next spring your garden beds should be full of rich dark compost all the way through. To get your garden beds ready for the new planting season you take all that black gold inside your beds and shovel it into a wheelbarrow or large container.

Repeat the layering method inside each bed. Use the compost you shoveled out of your beds as your compost soil mixture layer.

It's that easy. This method will save you some time and back ache when starting a vegetable patch. You could even use this method for an herb garden or flower beds.

This method is especially good for children and senior citizen who may have trouble digging up sod and tilling the soil in a regular garden.