Are excavations and renovations good for the metal raised garden bed soil?
You'll often hear most people say that you need to cultivate the land before you can start planting. The wisdom behind this is that it helps loosen the soil, spreading nutrients from the compost along with decaying plants from the last harvest. Most people hold to this belief because most plants grow and thrive in their first year of cultivation.
What most people miss in the process, however, is the loss of important balances in the soil in exchange for faster growth. This, in turn, promotes erosion, kills beneficial nematodes and worms, digs up weed seeds, and puts all plants under a lot of stress. Plant roots are specialized because the top root draws nutrients from the topsoil, while the lower root brings minerals from deep in the soil and acts as an anchor against the wind. Plants will grow better in a more natural and carefully balanced soil ecosystem, rather than exposing their roots to compost rich soil.
When you dig and turn soil, you expose a fragile ecosystem to air that will eventually dry out. It also exposes the soil to ultraviolet light from the sun, rather than disinfecting it and killing its organisms. By digging, nutrients such as nitrogen and carbon are removed from the soil. This also loses organic material from the soil and prevents it from holding water well. Compaction occurs when soil structure is disturbed and causes hard disk formation. This also reduces water infiltration, which leads to more surface runoff, leading to an increase in soil erosion.
That's because of tradition. In the old days, people treated their gardens like mini-farms. Since most people have seen how things are done in big farms, they have done the same with their gardens at home. Earth has a soil life of 60 years, and digging shortens that life.
How to build a garden without digging?
It's easy to build a garden without digging. First you can choose a raised garden bed that is suitable for your garden, plus you can place a raised garden bed anywhere in your garden whether your garden soil is not suitable for planting. It just takes a few simple steps:
1. Choose the spot where you want to place your raised garden bed, making sure it gets lots of sunlight and is flat.
2, choose the material of garden bed, here I recommend you choose galvanized steel metal raised garden bed, because its service life can reach 30 to 70 years.
3. Prepare mulch, you can cover the metal raised garden bed surface with newspaper or cardboard, this will eventually kill the grass and decompose with it.
4. After all the preparations are made, you are ready to fill your metal raised garden bed. The first layer can be made from partially decomposed compost. The least decomposed compost usually has some wood chips and other organic materials. You want to fill it up and tamp it down a little bit to keep it tight. You should compost as much as possible on the least decomposed compost, as it will start to decline after a few weeks.
5. Start planting, no need to add fertilizer because you already have the perfect soil mixture. You can start planting now. For your organic metal raised garden bed, you can grow whatever you want and make sure everything is healthy come the growing season. The gardening method used in these types of garden beds is square foot gardening. This method allows you to grow a variety of vegetables, herbs, and even flowers. Once done, you can place mulch or hay cuttings on top to keep the soil moist.