Sheetmulching for ginger
Last October we decided to plant ginger as a cash crop experiment. I never gave ourselves much of a lead up time to do this so consequently the job became a bit overbearing. There was grass to be weeded out and gravel and stones to be removed before the process to form the row beds for the ginger. So this year as we intend to extend the system I told myself to start earlier in the preparation process.
The first step was to eliminate the weeding process. This will be achieved by sheetmulching to smother the grass. The local store/shop/cafe has a continuous supply of cardboard boxes they need to get rid of and are quite happy for us to take this away. A trailer load of this covered about half of the area. Then a trailer load of sawdust from the local sawmill, which we can get for free as well, was spread over the top to stop the cardboard from blowing away. The sawdust looks a lot better too, rather than the tatty cardboard look.
And the cows got involved too. They crash grazed the area for three days beforehand to knockdown the grass.
The cardboard and sawdust will decompose down adding organic matter to help build the soil as well. It was quite hot here today causing quite a bit of sweat however I kept telling myself that there will be less sweat involved when the time comes to create the beds because I won’t need to weed.
Au Revoir Tom
©2016 Tom Kendall; permeco.org, incorporating Permaculture Research Institute Sunshine Coast, simplicity, permaculture, self reliance and homesteading, sheetmulching.