I must confess I am a lazy gardener, I let so many things go to seed and my garden is always a mess. Ok not always, sometimes it is beautiful… in parts. However, I have found that when you just leave things to go to seed they, wait for it… make seeds. These seeds, when left for a long time grow volunteers. In fact about 60% or more of my garden is volunteers. Perhaps another 15% are plants that I cut the top off and has re-grown a bit smaller in its place (thanks cabbage). I think I actually purchase about 5% of the plants as seedlings and the rest is plants that have just kept growing.
I practice no till cause, well I have no time and dumping a bunch of compost on everything is only labor intensive not so much time consuming. That said it still takes a while. I have found that if I time when I cover the beds with compost well weeding becomes much easier. I stumbled across this fact over the last growing season when I must have cut the amount of time I spent weeding in half (exact times were not actually recorded I’m just guessing). Also if I don’t till I have more opportunities for volunteers and if I could have a garden that just kept springing up itself and I wouldn’t ever have to plant seeds again. I would love to hear what others do in their gardens as I’m really just winging it most the time.
