Mark Dressing – From 2

I Part of this series preparation of the soil in the timber garden, I went through plastvävens for- and disadvantages. Christian Odberger pointed out in a comment to the post that it is virtually useless to fight against the grass as long as there's so plenty of light as it does in the young forest garden. It does well as long as seedling supply is limited. It is actually to establish a close örtskikt not dominated by grass by planting in robust, sun-loving plants like Russian man, Good Henrik målla, yarrow, comfrey, kungsmynta, wild strawberries, Vitka etc.. The plastic play out its advantages, however, especially in large scale and that makes it requires huge numbers of plants and thus either enormously job or a huge amount of money to get away from the grass.

After five years of experiments with plastic fabric, we have largely stopped covering new areas on the way. Last week we picked away 200 kvm markväv, sådde in gröngödslingsplantor (that will not outcompete grass, but create variation in örtskiktet) and covered instead around every tree and focuses on some smaller beds where we establish a functioning örtskikt around the trees and bushes. That is precisely what our new strategy is. It is not worthwhile to accelerate the transition to a hardwood-like setting across forest garden as long as the trees are so small that they pass most of the sunlight. It is better to focus on each tree or shrub as well as some selected beds and give them our full attention.

The cover material we now use is primarily newspapers. It is enough with a small stack of newspapers to cover one meter in all directions around the tree. If needed, add wood chips (least 70% broadleaved, Please fresh), some compost, ash in small amounts (to raise the pH, max 2 dl per kvm), småkvistar or other organic material in newspapers to promote the terrestrial organisms. It is important to water thoroughly around the tree and soaking the papers before they are posted. The papers absorb much of the rainfall and it is dry in the newspapers from the beginning it may be difficult for the trees. Around each tree should leave an opening having a diameter of 40-60 cm, so that it can water the trees properly.

The papers should be on the lot, so that they overlap by about one third, otherwise the aggressive weeds easily get through the gaps between the papers. After a few years will be necessary to expand coverage, so that the trees' root system can continue to develop properly. The roots extends approximately 50% further from the tree than the crown makes. Coverage of newspapers requires continuous maintenance, but it is still surprisingly little job.

To the newspapers not to blow away and for that it is much better looking, it is good to add some mulch on top of the papers. A thick blanket of organic material also makes fröogräs can not get a foothold in the newspapers, which can otherwise be a rather fertile ground for weeds. As the mulch breaks down increases soil fertility due to the increase of carbon, something that we can not accomplish with plastic. In the first years we used mainly silage, Straw and hay farmers around here had rejected. It has worked well, except that sometimes blown off and made the newspapers also blowing away in windy properly. Although the papers are broken down in the end gives it a rather scratchy impression with half-torn newspapers that stuck here and there in the landscape. Therefore, we use nowadays almost exclusively birch wood chips, which also favors the sponge-based land flora that we're looking for in the forest garden.

Cover with newspapers works up to a certain size ratio. We have covered some growing hills might 50 sqm with newspapers, but someplace where is the limit for us. Would you still cover larger areas, For example, if you already have semi-shady conditions, or have very good plant availability, you can use cardboard instead of newspapers. Although the method we have used in some places in the forest garden. Here it is not stingy with the cover material. Corrugated cardboard is thicker and stiffer than the newspapers and if one does not weigh down the, hit it willingly, creating large voids in the board and makes it easy to fly away. We also noticed that the cardboard does not permeate the air as well as newspapers and the earth under the cardboard can feel a little slimy (which is not good). Moreover, it sits often infinitely many plastic pieces on the cardboard that need to be removed, which allows one to quickly lose the time you earned that easily able to cover some larger areas. So even though we have an agreement with a local building materials that take care of their corrugated board, we have now gone back to cover with newspapers in most places.

Many who visit the forest garden wonder if there is not a lot of toxins in the newspapers that we cover with. I have long wondered the same thing myself, and the next post will be about what I have come up in my research about newspapers and possible toxins they can contain.