A New Way of Planting

Kevin is from Korea and it was his first day at garden club. He chose a plot and then started working it, weeding and turning the soil. Then to our surprise he made these trenches in the soil and mounded four rows up.

We were fascinated as it was totally different from how we are accustomed to doing things here. Kevin said it was the Korean way – you plant on the top of the mound, and the lower trenches hold the water. We can’t wait to see how well his plants grow. Maybe we can try doing this with some of our other plants too, and compare what does better.

Today Clare also talked about mulching and why we do it. She showed us a diagram that explained how 80% of the water we put onto the soil will evaporate unless we use mulch. If mulch is added the figure goes right down to 10%. That tells us mulching is definitely a good idea!

We talked about different mulches – dead leaves, newspaper, comfrey, seaweed and pea straw – and the pros and cons of each.

Clare had some of each of them that we could use but we all chose pea straw. Why? We’ll let you know in another post soon.