Our house came with garden. Unfortunately, it was full of useless exotic plants. After cutting down those, there was still large areas covered in boring lawn. In order to turn the lawn into vegetable beds, I use a simplified version of sheet mulching, see for example: https://myperfectplants.com/2016/12/04/mulch-garden-just-makes-better/
First I cut down all the plants in the area with a spade:
converting it to:
This will be the lowest sheet. In order for microorganism, beetles etc to convert the high cellulose to humus soil, they will need nitrogen fertilizer. Here one can use for example chicken litter, or some organic or artificial nitrogen rich fertilizer.
In order to prevent the weed in this sheet to start growing, I use large sheets of carton, e.g. carton boxes from IKEA. I cover the whole area:
With time, the carton will be converted to soil as well, but it will also need some nitrogen fertilizer. I add some more, together with compost.
Then I add store bought soil on top to cover everything. To prevent weed from growing in between, I will finally add a layer of straw on the top. This also helps to keep the soil moist.
And water it for half an hour:
That's it!
Unfortunately, this is now not only a vegetable beet, but also a preferred toilet for cats. In a next blog, I will describe how I deal with this problem!
That's how it will look like in a couple of months:
