Ayurvedic gardening

I came across this on Ezine Articles....interesting!

 Introducing an even simpler style of Ayurvedic gardening - YIN

I love the Ayurvedic system as a model of natural gardening... but I'd loathe the purgatory of hand-weeding it. So could this controlled jungle be made labour-free? A clue lies in another Asian country, Japan, home of the fabled no-dig system of Masanobu Fukuoka. This Buddhist visionary showed that rye and barley seed, wrapped in clay pellets, can be broadcast-sown among rice while it is still growing.

Contrary to belief, much rice - 'wild' rice apart - is not grown in water. When the rice is harvested, its stems are spread among the seedling grains as a mulch. As the grains mature, rice is hand-sown among them. When the grain is harvested, its stems are cut and spread as a mulch. As the rice matures, rye and barley are sown again.

And so it goes, in a perpetual cycle - one crop maturing as another is started among it. The roots are left to rot in the soil, the mulch from each crop retains moisture so watering is usually unnecessary, and the soil's fertility renews itself.

It's deceptively simple. But it took Fukuoka 30 years to perfect it and his early experiments wiped out his farm, twice. Suppose we combine both these Asian methods, and add a touch of Western bravura? And produced the ideal scheme for a low maintenance organic garden?

Introducing Yeoman's Improved No-dig system (YIN).

Phase One

In February under cloches, we'd plant broad beans intercropped with radishes, pak choy, aragula (rocket), spinach, early lettuce, peas and carrots. For mulch, we'd use several sheets of newspaper held down with compost and cut holes or slits in it for the seeds or transplants.

Phase Two

By late May, the peas will have grown up the beans and both can be harvested. Any immature pods can be eaten whole like mangetout and the still-growing tips used fresh in salads. As in the Fukuoka method, we leave the roots in the soil and lay back the cut bean and pea stems plus any unwanted spinach foliage as a mulch. Sweet corn transplants are then put in.

Among them we drop French beans (Phaseolus vulgaris, the 'common' bean), maincrop carrots and other roots, plus more lettuce. We ring the plot with transplants of calendula, tagetes, nasturtiums, basil, carraway and other spicy annual herbs. At the end of the rows go space-hogging courgettes, pumpkins and other squash.

Phase Three

In September, all is harvested. We leave the roots in the soil, chop the stems and leaves and lay them back as mulch. In go our winter brassica. Or we might sow Chinese leaves, land cress and aragula (rocket), very thickly, as edible green manures. This is cut in February and laid back as a mulch, whereupon the cycle begins again.

No more, must we lug those stems and leaves to a compost bin, turn it laboriously then haul the wretched stuff back where it came from. Nature doesn't do that! And left where it falls, the mulch should suppress most annual weeds. (All parts of a diseased or suspect plant should be taken up and burnt, of course.)

This simplified version of Ayruvedic gardening not only suppresses weeds and is ecologically efficient. It also saves time and labour!

Article Source: https://EzineArticles.com/expert/John_Yeoman/576275