The chard just wouldn’t germinate. Finally I got a few to sprout but they died off within two weeks.

The hot peppers were in 5gal buckets so I could start them early, but they just struggled so much and didn’t survive the transition from inside to outside. Funny because I did the same process with some sweet peppers and they all survived (but I only got a few peppers total from them).

Oh yeah, I also tried lettuce and spinach a few times, none got past an inch high before dying. I suspect that’s because these weaker plants don’t like being planted in a few inches of leaf mulch.

A lot of my failures are due to that it’s just the first year, and the soil was just chopped up leaves and rotting lawn grass with heavy clay below that. Next year I hope the soil will have improved and some things will grow better. I’ve got a mix of of buckwheat, vetch, winter peas, and rye growing in the beds now. I plan to kill that with a tarp in the spring and use the plant matter as a mulch. I hope this will help break up some of the clay and make it easier for the less hardy annuals to establish.

I have very little time to spend on it, so gardening is my super laid back hobby. I come out and putter around, but generally try to grow things with as little effort as possible using cover crops, no-till, and tarps to kill off beds that get too unruly.

Meanwhile I’m also working on perennials to add to the mix of low effort treats. I’ve got a quarter acre yard with a lot of thick clay, so every year is just a good chance to break it up with deep rooted crops and nitrogen fixers.

My dream is in 5 years I’ll have excellent soil for the annuals to thrive, and perennials producing more fruit than I can possibly eat.

Oh I loved it, it was great fun!

I’m very excited to plant more perennials in the spring, this year I started grapes, asparagus, and ground cherries (I’ve heard they reseed easily so basically perennial).

I want to do more in the spring, thinking blueberries, raspberries, strawberries, elderberries, goji berries, maybe currants, gooseberries, service berries, mulberry, cherry, pawpaw, persimmon, and apple.

I figure if even half of that does well, in a few years I’ll be swimming in nightly berry desserts.

Maybe I’ll just improve the soil in the annual beds for at least another year before trying them out again. We will see

My first year, turned my lawn into rows by dumping a lot of mulched leaves on the grass and planting into it. No tilling, no amendments, no fertilizer. Very little weeding. I spent about 25 hours over the whole season on this project.

All in, got 150lb of veggies in 600sq ft of bed space.

Big Successes:

• tomatoes
• green beans
• pumpkins
• zucchini
• ground cherries
• turnips

Mild Successes:

• radishes
• cucumbers
• dry beans
• dent corn
• sweet peas
• basil
• sage
• sweet peppers
• bell peppers
• melon

Total failures (no harvest):

• chard
• cabbage
• kale
• brussel sprouts
• okra
• dill
• cilantro
• tomatillos
• hot peppers

I cleared everything out and planted a winter cover crop, hoping to improve the soil quality over the winter. I might take next year off also and do another rotation of soil improving crops. I don’t really feel like tilling.