We have 2 raised beds about 16’X4’ each along with about 3/4 acre of ‘just plain ground’. Plus another 1/2 acre or so of fruit trees, blueberry bushes, raspberry brambles and strawberry beds. I have a citrus orchard (up to 8 trees now!) in big pots on my driveway in the summer, it’s in the garage in the winter.
We expanded our garden by about 20% last year and didn’t even till it. We just saved up newspapers and in mid march we placed them, flat and opened, about 6 layers thick over a new area. On top of that we put 6” of spoiled hay (we got it from a farmer on the cheap because it was spoiled and end of winter). We watered that in and in mid May hubby took a sharp shooter shovel and we put in the sweet potatoes on a 3’ grid (Bunch Porto Rico). No further work other than watering a couple of times during a dry spell. Much easier to mulch while it’s cool weather than trying to do it when it’s already baking after you’ve got everything planted out!
We plan to do the rest of the garden like this as soon as we get the t-posts and trellises pulled over Christmas holidays. Hubby will take the tiller (troy bilt, my grandfather’s from 1973), till it up, and we’ll do the paper/hay trick. This way when it’s time to plant all we have to do is essentially poke holes in the mulch, put in the seedlings, and we’re done. Much faster than trying to mulch around stuff that’s already in the ground. Laying the paper in giant rectangles of space goes really quickly if you’ve already got it flatted out.
Now, there you go - great gardening info. Thanks. That’s a lot of plants to tend. Sounds great. I like what you are doing with the newspapers and hay.
I am sure it works out really well. I did something similar back when I had a bunch of old newspaper. It really helped keep the weeds down among other things, now that you mention it. I had kinda forgotten all about it.
Sometimes, I use my shredded paper for mulch. It’s got to be better to put the plants into the space after the newspaper/mulch is already down though. That’s for sure.
Thanks for the info. It was very interesting, and I am sure others will find it helpful too.