The Beginning

To save myself from pulling every last one of my hairs out, we are going to try the no till gardening method this year.  Last year in our first attempt with a NC Piedmont garden we were over run with weeds, namely crab grass.  I tried keeping up with hand weeding but after 2 hours every day I lost the fight.  So thanks to a modified variation of Masanobu Fukuoka's The One-Straw Revolution we are trying a different approach. We have placed cardboard down on the whole garden and have been adding grass clippings and our own leaf mulch.  In addition we plan on adding 2-3" of leaf mulch plus compost or manure.  Then a shit ton of leaf mulch around plants and seedlings.  Last year in our 80 head asparagus garden we put 4" of shredded bark mulch and only had to pull a hand full of weeds.  So here's hoping it will work for the vegetable garden too.

Just ordered some LED grow lights and seeds, yes I went a little overboard with the seeds.  Would you rather I go crazy spending money on clothes?  I think not.  With all the video reviews we watched researching LED lights I am sure the NSA has us on some list for pot growers.  We aren't by the way, not that anything is wrong with that, but I am sure our neighbors will wonder what that strange glow is coming from our dining room.  We did not have good luck with eggplant, peppers, or squashes last year so I am hoping that this will give them the jump start they need.  That plus the absence of crab grass.  Now if I can just be patient enough to wait for the suggested indoor start dates.....good luck with that.