How NOT to Prepare a No Till Garden or in other words Boy, Can I Make a Mess!

As I told you, I wanted to try this no till garden thing so the other night right before dark, Fred and I got out there and laid out newspapers on the wet ground.  It had been raining earlier.  We got it done right before dark so we put a sprinkler out there for awhile to wet the newspapers.  I figured I would get out there the next morning and start adding the compost in the beds I laid out with brick. 

The next morning, however, I had a doctors appointment so I thought I should leave the sprinkler on while I was gone so the newspapers wouldn't dry out and blow away.  When I got back a few hours later, I went out to the garden and alot of the newspapers had dissolved into small pieces.  The rest of it was really wet so I turned off the sprinkler because we had ruined the paper.   I went inside for lunch, the sun was shining, and you guessed it, the papers dried out and started blowing all over the place.  All that work for nothing!  The newspapers were out in the hay field, against the chicken yard fence, and pretty much everywhere but where they were supposed to be.  What a mess!  

Notice the newspapers stuck to the chicken yard fence on the right.

I have re-read the article about no till gardens and I can only assume that the whole thing - newspapers on the ground, wetting them out and putting in the walkways and garden plots, then adding compost and plants all need to be done in one day.  Laying the papers out one day and doing the rest any other time definitely does NOT work.  Another lesson learned.

Not to be deterred, moving on.