I stopped by the local nursery with my wife today to look at flower and vegie starts. Spring fever is officially here!! Actual spring, on the other hand, is still a couple months away. Bummer! We briefly reviewed the rows of common gardening paraphernalia and were again reminded how the Scyon gardening method makes most of them obsolete. The large supply of fancy tools, most amendments, and virtually all chemicals will never be seen our garden. I didn’t have to convince my wife to avoid any cute decorations either. She hates knickknacks. In the end, we got away mostly unscathed with a few plants.
I am a tech guy. I always loved man’s gardening tools and watering systems. I love to tinker and automate everything. For me that’s half the fun. The Scyon gardening method has been a test of will power for me to be willing to step back and let nature do her thing. For you, the reader, this is probably welcome news but for me it has been difficult. There are so many branching topics in gardening it would require a series of volumes to cover everything in detail. This section, however, is an attempt to distill Scyon Gardening down to a simple three step method.
There are many methods and techniques out there but the following guide is the nuts and bolts of my Scyon Faith Based Gardening method. Everything not absolutely vital to this holistic method is not included in this section. What is here, therefore, is Essential. Believe it!
There are three main principles in holistic Gardening. The first is to cover the ground with non decomposed plant cells. The second is to feed microbes, and the third is to maintain plant growth. If you do not do this properly, nature will step in and attempt to do it for you. You can not change nature from the way God created it. You can only choose to fight against or flow with Nature. The Scyon Method is all about flowing with nature and using her tools in place of man’s. Now, let us apply my practical method for achieving these principles with three basic steps.
Aside from the obvious space needed for growing a garden. The first step in Gardening is to Alleviate the suffering of your soil. To alleviate means to lessen the burden of or make suffering less severe. On a wound we typically like to use a bandage. On soil we use mulch, which is basically the same thing. Plowing or tilling literal wounds the soil. In Scyon gardeners recognize the earth is a living creature and that mulch is like a skin to cover her flesh. It behaves in much the same way as your own skin in preventing dehydration and infection.
Your garden soil needs to be regularly clothed with a protective covering. Naked soil becomes a hosts harmful microbes. Keep it properly covered and in time your soil will become an ideal habitat for beneficial microbes. Achieving the ideal soil can take years but there are ways to speed it up. Lots of mulch! Worst case scenario, you grow nothing the first year.
Begin by putting down layers of mulch. Ideally this is chopped organic mater from whole trees or shrubs. It does not matter what kind of mulch you get, only that you avoid mixing it into the soil. Pile mulch at least 6-8” deep the first year. Don’t worry about going too deep, it’s literally not possible though you might not grow much the first year or two. Each year, continue to amend your soil by adding new layers of green (grass, leaves, manure, kitchen scraps, garden fruit, vegetables, etc.) under layers of brown (wood chips, tree shavings, saw dust, shredded cardboard etc.).
Dried hay is a magic material that appears to be natures ideal combo of brown and green. May is just the right size that it maximizes moisture retention while feeding soil microbes and smothering weeds. Think about the great grass plains of America. You could use hay and nothing else but this may be difficult and expensive to source in some places. The key is, “use what you can get”.
As you layer new mulch on top of old, it will break down and continue to provide nutrients and improved soil conditions. Do it correctly and this is all in soil amendments you will need.