I stopped by the local nursery with my wife today to look at flowers and some cabbage starts. Spring fever is officially here!! Actual spring, on the other hand, is still a couple of months away. Bummer!
We briefly reviewed the rows of common gardening paraphernalia and were again reminded how the Faith Based gardening methods makes most of this junk obsolete. The large supply of fancy tools, amendments, and chemicals become obsolete and will never be seen our garden. I didn’t have to convince my wife to avoid cute decorations either. She hates knickknacks. In the end, we got away with only a few plants. I love buying seeds and plants.
I am actually a tech guy. I love 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. It had been hard to step back and let nature do her thing. For you, the reader, this is probably welcome news.
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 is eliminated. What is here, therefore, is Essential. Believe it!
There are three main principles in holistic Gardening. The first is to cover the ground. The second is to feed microbes, and the third is to keep roots in the ground. If you do this properly, nature will thrive and work for you. You can not change nature from the way God created it. You can only choose to fight against it or flow with it. 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 it need not be so. There are ways to speed it up. In the worst case scenario, you grow nothing the first.
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. Only layer it on top. 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.). Ideally you mix these together 30:1 (30 parts brown to one part Greens).
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. When you want to plant either sprinkle seeds on top in the spring (or fall) or move mulch aside until you see moist soil. Always plant into soil and add mulch as plants grow.