No-dig, No-weed Gardening worth the
effort?
by Megan Moss
St. Mark’s Lutheran Church Column - April
It’s planting season. This year
I got a book from the library called “No-Dig, No-Weed Gardening.” Sounded good to me, who likes to dig and
weed anyway? As I read I began to see
some problems. First of all, it wasn’t
a totally “no-dig” method. I am
supposed to dig in soil amendments the first year, based on the soil analysis I
had done in the fall. Yet I want to use the method this summer. I have already failed to follow the
instructions and I am only at step one.
I read on. The author suggests using black plastic mulch over the garden
to keep down weeds. Not a bad idea, except that I am way too frugal to buy
plastic that I would be poking holes and cutting slits in and thus not be able
to use the next year. I opt for the organic mulch method. I have bales of straw left from last years
garden, and a couple bags of leaves that should work.
I am ready to role, or so I think. The next aspect of
“no dig” gardening requires me to plant my starts in Styrofoam cups of the 10
or 12 oz. size. In order to maximize root growth the authors state that the
cups have to have three holes poked in the bottom and 6 slits cut up the sides.
This has to be done with two half-length hacksaw blade placed next to each other
in a home-made handle, otherwise the slits won't be wide enough for proper air
circulation. Additionally, I am supposed to make my own planting mix, using
their soil-less recipe.
Sounds like a lot of work. Does this guy expect me to
go out and buy all this stuff? I have
50-60 of those little plastic cellpacks. Lots of them are still full of dirt
from last year, ready to plant. Then I think about how long I spent turning my
garden and planting all my odd sized containers last year, and decide to give it
a shot.
At Walmart I throw a pack of styrofoam cups into my
basket. The kids enjoy stabbing a pencil into the bottom of the cups to make
the holes. Lacking the requisite hacksaw blade, and not wanting to head to Home
Depot just for that, I try my electric knife – it has a double width blade –
why not? Wow! The knife cut through
Styrofoam much faster than it cut through meat. I try using the knife unplugged.
After 3 cups, my arm feels like it is about to fall off. Finally, I take the blades out of the knife,
hold them together in my hand, and try again. Not great, but functional. I transplant my tomatoes and eggplants,
which are getting leggy into my new cups, adding cut up pieces of screen from
an old door per instructions to help hold the root ball together.
A couple weeks later I am in Fort Wayne and have some
time to kill. I stop by the store to buy the other necessary items – sphagnum
moss, perlite, vermiculite, fish and seaweed emulsions, and a long handled bulb
planter, which, according to the authors, makes just the right size holes for
the cups.
As luck would have it I find the long handled bulb
planter right away, and it is only $7. I am psyched. I find two torn open bags
of peat moss, which I willingly buy once the clerk says she can discount them
for me, but nothing else from my list.
Maybe Miracle Grow will work as well as the fish and seaweed emulsion,
and I already have some of that. I mix
up the dirt from last years cups, which I sterilized in the oven per the book's
directions, with the peat moss and some potting soil, and stirred in Styrofoam
peanuts, an alternate for the squares of screening, the authors guarantee will
hold the root ball together when it comes time to transplant. I am a little
worried because my peanuts are pink, and more like foam. Oh well, they look pretty.
Then I run out of Styrofoam cups, and realize, when I
go to buy more, that the 32 plants sucking up Miracle Grow enriched water from
the bottom of their plastic trays are in 8 oz. cups. Will they still work with
the bulb planter? Is all my work in vain?
I buy 12 oz. cups for my broccoli and peppers, and
poke and slice once more. Half a method is better than no method at all, right?
Then I start thinking about what I am going to write
for my column, and wonder how I can relate gardening to the bible or religion
or something. I realize that although I have good intentions, it’s often
difficult to follow instructions, especially when trying something for the
first time.
In the bible, God gives us many different instructions.
Sometimes I worry that I have failed if I don’t follow all of them. Yet perhaps
life is a little like gardening, in that you have to try different methods, and
sometimes you don’t get it right the first time, but you keep trying because in
the end, it's the trying that counts. So what if I have to do a little digging
along the way?