The butterfly garden at Jake’s Branch County Park SHIP Garden Project was originally located in an open area field conveniently situated nearby the nature center. Park staff has since determined the area is better suited for park events and gatherings. It’s been decided that it makes sense to move this SHIP garden to a new location to facilitate a better use of the property.
Our SHIP garden team decided on a new location for the bed and I suggested we start to assemble a no-dig, sheet mulched area now, near Christmas time, to allow some time before we actually plant the bed in spring.
Thankfully, the park had access to materials that are perfect for construting a sheet mulched garden bed. Park staff mowed the selected area. We opened and spread old bales of hay from a festival they hosted this fall in a layer about 4″ thick over the mowed turf. A layer of cardboard was spread on top of the hay and shredded bark mulch was spread on top of this to finish it off.
Sheet-mulched, no-dig garden beds are usually constructed with a cardboard or newspaper layer directly on top of the grass or weeds with compost and other layers of organic matter on top of this. However, because the hay bales contain so many weed seeds, and because maintenance may be performed intermittently, it makes sense to smother as many potential weeds with the cardboard and wood mulch as possible from the beginning.
What a fantastic beginning! The mulch layer is fairly thin, so we will need to add more over the winter to create a thicker top coat. It rained like crazy for 2 days straight after we put this together, so it’s well watered. This bed will settle and soften the soil underneath so it will be ready to plant in spring.
This method of creating a new garden bed has many benefits!
- Amends the soil with lots of organic matter
- Provides slow release natural fertilizer
- Provides food and habitat for soil life including microorganisms, insects and worms
- Retains moisture and regulates soil temperature
- Removes the need to till and remove turf grass from new garden site
- Smothers weeds
I’m so happy to be working with this team of people on such an important project!