Back to Eden Project

http://backtoedenfilm.com/ This is a link to the website that tells about the film that we watched that changed the garden that Jay planted.  If the blogger app for android would allow me a little more mobility, I would tell you the whole story in the "house that Jack built" style, complete with pictures.  Since either me or that app doesn't know how to caption pictures, I will give you pictures and a short story and you get to line everything up yourself.
     Back in March, our friends, Josh and Jessie, gave us a gardening video to watch. It was called Back to Eden, and if you follow the link I won't have to elaborate much. (You don't have to watch the whole movie; 20 minutes should put you in the know. ) Briefly, the idea is to mulch heavily with a good mixture of organic matter and you won't have to water, weed, or fertilize your garden.
     Ok, so yes, that is too good to be true. But we are quite willing to cut back on watering, weeding, and fertilizing. Our well is a little bit wimpy and we have just as many weeds as anybody (maybe more, because we don't like to spray poisons around). We've built up our soil quite a bit with cow manure, peat moss, and organic fertilizer, but that also is an endless job.
     So, after watching this film, Jay called a local pulp mill and found out they have a big pile of the proper stuff - ground up wood, already beginning to decompose.  He procurred three dumptruck loads of it for a decent price and then we spread the joy on all our gardens.
     It looks nice and neat. So far it has cut back on weeding. I don't know for sure why I want to have babies and flowerbeds at the same time; sometimes the flowerbeds really suffer. But this year my perennials look bigger and greener and I am not hopelessly behind on my weeding. I'm just a little bit behind.
      This whole summer will be an experiment in gardening, but some of the test results are already coming in. One example is the radishes. Normally, the radishes we grow are woody, small, and carved up from nematodes. This year they are small, but only because we don't want to wait to eat the perfect little things.
     And since gardening is a never-ending mystery and joy, the pursuit of the perfect soil continues. Our soil, as well as the mulch, tested low in nitrogen. Jay is also curious about the trace minerals content in the soil. His research is getting very interesting and a bit complex. Did you know that your soil needs to have all this good stuff in it, but unless the pH of your soil is right the plants can't use it? Well, now you know.
     I would post a picture of those radishes, but we ate them all before I could get a picture.