Gardening

Most of the sources I'd found on the subject seemed very cultish ("You have to do everything exactly my way or else you're wrong!"), which was also what I found when I looked into the square foot gardening method.

I find this very off-putting, so I rejected both and simply continued using what has worked for me in my raised beds and so far I've been happy with it.

For me, that means adding some compost to the beds each year after scraping off any mulch from the previous year that hasn't started breaking down into soil. After adding the compost (usually just a bag of black cow and a bag of mushroom compost per 4x4 bed) I turn everything over and break it up well with a spade shovel, smooth it out, plant, and re-mulch.

I'm only doing 4 beds and a few containers, so I use starts instead of seeds. As such, I fertilize each one at planting by adding granular fertilizer, bone meal, and crab & lobster meal to the bottom of the planting hole, stir it in with the dirt, and plant over that.

I have, with some raised beds. What went wrong with yours?

The key to establishing productive no till beds is adding a lot of organic material over the cardboard/newspaper/existing grass, and being patient.

They won't produce well the first year unless you add a lot of topsoil and compost right away (like 8-12 inches).

Most beds won't hit their stride for a few seasons. They often need topping up with more material in years two and three, as the underlying stuff breaks down. I like to start new beds in the fall so they're more established by spring.

All of this is to say, no need to undo your hard work so far. Just add more stuff on top (and maybe sow a cover crop in the fall to keep the soil biology alive.) Good luck!

I did it this year too. I had a whole dumpster load of compost delivered to my house, and had a pandemic's worth of Amazon boxes in cardboard. I also had some fallen tree branches that I cut up.

The areas where it went cardboard -> branches & twigs -> leaves n crap -> compost, are the areas that are doing the best right now. In areas where it was just cardboard -> compost, it took much longer for my plants to get established. However, eventually they did! The big key was making sure to keep that cardboard wet. If you wet it down really good, and then wet the compost on top, the roots have a much, much easier time digging in there. Bonus points if you can add a couple inches of mulch on top of your compost.

Now I'm finding there's so much compost that it's making the weeds go fucking nuts, it's wild to see how "life finds a way" in some areas.

But yeah, it worked out decently, just required enough water and time. Also thyme. No, seriously, using creeping thyme was a great way to help get the compost & soil to do its thing and firm up so that it could hold other plants.

I have no idea what I'm doing but we started a no till garden last year. We put down cardboard and then got a chip drop to spread mulch on top (~6 in) and let it sit. We got a ton of rain over winter and then started planting for the first time this March. Nothing else was added except some kitchen scraps and yard clippings for compost.

So far it's been really hit or miss. Radishes, lettuce and cabbage went wild, onions didn't do so well except for some small green onions.

We have tomatoes, cucumber, and watermelon all going strong right now but tomatillos and peppers have all failed to sprout or quickly died. We also have some dill, cilantro and borage that got a slow start but are thriving now.

I don't feel qualified to give advice but everything I read said this is a really slow process. It takes years to really cultivate healthy soil with good microbes from nothing starting out. We had a setback because earwigs absolutely love the rotting mulch and they made their home in some of our cabbage, but it's all beneficial in the long run, so the plan is to take what we can get and keep learning.

I try to but I do bokashi compost so I have to dig a little. I try to minimize the tilling because that dormant seed activation is so real! Covering with straw is far less headache inducing