#gardeningtips #mulchingsolutions #vegetablegarden #growyourownfood #squash

No Compost? Use Squash and Hay Instead 🌱

If you don’t have a lot of compost, squash and hay can be a really good alternative and can quickly turn a weedy patch into a productive space. 😊👍🌱

Even though my preferred way of starting a no dig garden is mulching with compost for the growing beds and woodchip in the pathways, It can be quite expensive and as this patch of ground is basically a bed of thistles and bindweed, Id need a really think layer of mulch to suppress them. 🌱👀😬

Hay is relatively inexpensive so I can add a much thicker layer and can then plant squash within it to add even more ground cover and produce a nice crop of squash in the process! 🎃👍

To start we just cut everything back and began to break apart the hay bales to cover the ground evenly with a depth of roughly 8-10 inches.

Then it was time to plant the squash, to plant I simply make a hole in the hay down to the surface of the soil, pop in the squash plant, fill the remaining space with compost and firm it down to help the squash plant establish before it roots into both the ground below and into the hay once it starts to break down. 🌱

Lastly, I water it in really well and cover the root zone with hay to help with water retention. 💦

But if you do decide to try this, just ensure you source hay that hasn’t been treated with anything nefarious such as herbicides, and you will inevitably get some seed in your hay, but it’s much easier to deal with than perennial weeds.

I’ll harvest my crop of squash in late summer into early autumn and next season once this hay and squash plants have broken down, I can make new growing beds straight on top of them. 😊

And thank you so supporting the community garden with organic hay @thefriendlyfarmers