Sheet Mulching (This Saturday, Sept 26!)

So I did not have a chance to write a reaction to the Tom Brown Tracker School course I just took. It's because I've been incredibly busy since I came back - organizing for this Saturday. That is when I'll be having anywhere between 15-30 people at my house doing yardwork... or in a more positive tone: we are having a sheet-mulching party!

What is sheet mulching?

I took this definition from the following website as I though it described it well: http://www.healthy-green-lifestyle.com/sheet-mulching.html

Sheet mulching is also known as lasagna gardening and no-till gardening. It
is a great way to get rid of grass and weeds without using chemicals and adds
nutrients to the soil. It also attracts beneficial critters such as worms.

How to do it:

This is the e-mail I've been sending out to students in all my classes and department. It describes what we will be doing on Saturday:

The goal of this Saturday is to prepare the yard for spring planting. We'll be spreading 500 lbs of minerals across all of the grass (thanks to Dan Kittredge and the Real Food Campaign for supplying), aerating the soil, then covering it with about 3 inches of compost, lots of cardboard, and some wood chips on top.

I was luckily able to get all of the compost (5000 lbs!) donated from UMass as this is going to be my 'practicum' research project. The Amherst recycling center is also donating 5 cubic yards of wood chips. I am renting a UHaul on Friday and to transport all of these materials from point A to point B (our yard).

The tools are donated by GardenShare - a UMass student organization that grows its own food for members.

And the cardboard has been collected over the past month via me going dumpster to dumpster in search of the largest boxes (which cover the most area) that have no glossy-ness to them (like beer boxes)... you want the nice brown or white ones with very little printing, tape, staples, etc.

Hopefully we'll have a big turn out on Saturday... the yard area is about 5000 s.f. so there is a lot of sheet mulching to do I will surely document the process and post pictures once I get some more time. And also will eventually post about my experience at Tom Brown, which was fantastic.