GRASS to GARDEN | A No-Dig Transformation Story (Inspired by Charles Dowding and Paul Gautschi)

got a little bit here got something from the deli folks here's the deal yo we got some cardboard it's a good start marked it all out we have the corners here there's the other corner way down there and i'm gonna go ahead and use the mower put on a low setting to cut everything real close to the ground [Music] boom look at that boom boom everything has been mowed down i am mowing it down because i want the cardboard to have nice contact with the soil so that it speeds up that decomposition process as well as it's easier to put cardboard down onto uh grass that's been cut so it's not as spongy oh yeah look at this look at this boom that's all cleared out looking snazzy now i'm pulling this to the lower end of the garden first because what you want to do is you want it to be almost like shingles we're smothering the weeds right now we're we're smothering the existing anything that's growing right now we're going to smother it kill it off by restricting any sunlight getting to it so we'll do a layer all along the bottom of the garden and then one and above it one above it almost like stair stepping all the way up the garden first row second row just keep building up hill like that we have gaps here gap here go ahead and put those so that way they overlap so that the grass can't grow up through [Music] there [Music] looking good here comes this is future vegetables future really really good food so excited about it nice got the chips we got the chips nice i mean in my mind this might as well be gold almost i mean that would be nice for that to be gold i would prefer gold over this but it's close it's close to the same thing in my mind because that is turning into future food for me and my friends and my family happy stuff we're loaded up looking good smelling good wish you could smell it smells very fresh let's go back pay for it head back to the house finally folks we are on site as in my house we got all kinds of compost up there but guess what i found another source of compost and uh good material there's a recycling place over here that i called and they said they have a pile of stuff that i can get for free so i'm gonna go ahead wait on dumping this i got to go get the cardboard actually because the walmart has cardboard piled up for me they're going to throw it away if i don't get it real quick so got to get that cardboard and then i'll dump this and then i'll go get some of that stuff over there talk about a crazy day oh my goodness but hey we're making it happen to me it's all worthwhile because think about all the time and energy that folks put into you know buying super big houses and super nice cars but they don't take sometimes they don't take care of their bodies our bodies are gifts and i in my opinion is that we should be stewards of our bodies so this to me is investment in taking care of my body and helping my friends and family also take care of their bodies by growing some really good food healthy food homegrown food okay i'm going to leave this truck right here for now and i'm going to get my truck wherever it is oh shoot i don't know just remember that my truck is over at the other place i guess yep i'm gonna have to dump this all right let's go ahead and dump it keep on forgetting stuff okay let's dump this and then we'll come back go over there get the cardboard go and get the other stuff [Music] [Music] oh yeah that's some good stuff [Music] this is an exciting day for the garden guy look at this goodness look at that fell right to the edge there somebody was planning thinking right i'm gonna go up there scoop a little more with the scooper pooper but man oh man look at that start [Music] that's future groceries right there i'm telling you you know here i am talking about taking care of your body and everything and i am super thirsty so i'm going to go inside give myself a drink and then we will leave going in to go get that cardboard now oh man look at this gold right here a lot of gold finally have a passenger friend he's a little bored because he's cardboard but he's he's a good friend to have all right next stop is compost looks like the guy has quite a bit to load up first then he'll come over here and help me essentially we are kick starting this garden so that i can have not only a fall garden but the best spring garden whenever that time comes around all of this material is going to have the chance to break down all winter long all this is going to be covered i'm about to cover it up and then this compost is coming down we're gonna do it about about that thick this is mushroom compost super good stuff it's already been breaking down for about five or six months and i'm talking some seriously rich stuff you can even see the uh the mycelium see the two little white there that's where the fungi roots were called hyphy i'm talking quality right there quality to get us started off i'm gonna go ahead and put all the cardboard down and then we'll start on the compost [Music] when you have a big project like this i don't know about y'all but whenever i have a big project i have to set goal and then just attain it and then i'm done from that point on my goal is to get a good layer of about two inches on the whole garden of this stuff before i stop for the day and then that'll be a successful day [Music] [Applause] [Music] what it's all loaded up mr brewster this is all gonna be on the garden soon it is you follow along on this journey it's gonna be all around that perimeter that's why i call happiness boom oh love it yeah chunky monkey look at the bug look at the box [Music] once oh nice nice hug keeping the line straight we're just lining it up to where it overlaps with cardboard keeping the outside edge the same distance while also layering it like that boom yeah this outside edge is the same that way the weeds aren't able to come in we can weed along the edge there keep it nice and clean guys i'm going to school with my bucks got some straight lines these pieces have really done a great job of killing off i mean look at that that was just a live grass just a little bit ago about three four weeks ago currently it's just all died off so i would encourage anybody who's trying to do this primarily wood chips method i mean this is a small space but imagine this on a large scale i would go ahead and cover an area with plastic or with some type of material that's going to restrict the light from coming down in on the existing plants and it will kill them off like this essentially that just means that those existing plants are going to have a harder time popping up through the new mulch that you're putting down whoa look at this garden we got all these borders in a little bit of greenery in the distance finish off the end here and then get some more of that compost put on top and then wood chips do some pathways it's going in these guys are awesome thank you for your help and good efforts you guys are awesome boom thank you little girl yeah y'all it's a good day that didn't take very long because many hands make light work boom you know this is really good because you can see all the layers of this garden first of all you come down you have just the normal grass weeds decaying debris all kinds of stuff and then you pull this back a little bit and you have cardboard all layered out going across all underneath the gar the entire garden and then on top of that is this mushroom compost about 2-3 inches of mushroom compost all the way throughout solid material it's really great stuff more fungal than bacterial it's inoculating the cardboard and these perimeter boards with fungi and then you keep going forward and now we come across this second layer of compost which is more wood based green material based it's got all kinds of decaying material in there it's it's a little less decayed than the mushroom compost but it's it's still doing a good job it's already breaking down turning back into soil got a little bit more debris in there and then from there we're going to be putting down the wood chips so yes always try to get wood chips that have been chopped up with a an entire tree you know everything the whole thing just gets all munched up now this stuff right here has quite a bit of um looks like the chipper was not super sharp so you can see he has quite a few like longer branches and twigs sorry if it's loud and windy because it's honestly pretty loud and windy right now so yeah you've got all these like bigger twigs and stuff you lay those down you know those are going to provide a bit of a a web it's going to keep the soil more loose and act as like a like a mat where oxygen is going to be able to flow through this space a little better than if all the pieces were all tiny pieces like sawdust wow it's really getting a little windy out here yikes bottom line is you want to be able to have different sizes of chips so that the structure of your pathways is not prone to compaction you don't really want to compact too much so try to get wood chips that are have all kinds of different sizes it's a beautiful day in the neighborhood it's a beautiful day in the neighborhood won't you be one a gardener okay we have about 21 feet from the outside to the outside okay it's a little rainy rainy right now i'm gonna go in the garage and let's keep on talking about the dimensions of this garden let's use a little bit of a visual to figure out our pathways so this is going to hopefully help us understand what's going on in the garden we have one side all the way to the other side is 20 feet 20 feet to work with all right i'm doing pathways that are approximately two feet wide so use each of these little guys is a pathway so that's one two three four all right four times two is eight feet we need eight feet total for pathways and then we have the actual beds which are one two three those beds are four feet wide twelve feet so 12 feet plus the eight feet for the pads equals a total of 20 feet which is exactly what we have it's getting a little a little cleared out uh it's still sprinkling but hey let's no a little sprinkle never hurt you know what i'm saying i've got these sticks all placed out this is something they did in zimbabwe they've used sticks as the spacers all right then we got one here i really need a pitchfork eventually things fork moves mulch quite a bit better than a shovel does whoa look at this good stuff see that little white see those little white guys those are mycelium those are starting to break down this compost all kinds of different little microbes are already eating this stuff down awesome [Music] y'all this mulch is only about a month and a half old as you go down through these levels you can see that past about a foot it gets to be kind of white that's where the mycelia and the fungi want to start breaking things down but they really need liquid they need water to be able to fully efficiently do that so water has rained down and stayed in this top layer you can even see leaves that have fallen on top here and that chunk that area is already starting to break down you can even see look a little maggie right there this is where if i had chickens they would be able to come in and scratch this around they'd find those little maggots and eat them what happens is the best efficient way is to keep this turning and that's going to make the whole process go a lot faster but for now i'm getting this out putting on my garden and layers thin enough to where oxygen air is going to get into those layers [Music] then with that row [Music] friends is getting a little dark a little dark last thing they need to do is go down these pathways you can see we have two rows here two pathways these pathways i'm gonna level them out and really just let them rot down this winter time they're gonna shrink down to you know a tenth of the size they are right now because a lot of what is theirs is just little little pieces of leaves and stuff so level them out keep it nice and neat and there we are we have perfect pathways [Music] but yeah there they are the pathways number one number two got some good stuff going on in here i'll show you another day probably tomorrow what they actually look like when it's brighter pretty simple folks pretty simple just any type of organic carbon preferably carbon that has you know bigger chunks in it different varying sizes of of material so that like i said you can have that airflow going through and it will resist compaction [Music] [Music] so [Music] so [Music] [Music] so [Music] and there you go looking good looking good garden is ready for spring [Music] [Music] so [Music] so

Channel: Gardenguy

Views: 136,277

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Id: 2NuMDDqlIEQ

Length: 21min 31sec (1291 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 24 2021