Core gardening is a game changer for us and we have been using it 3 years in a row now with very amazing success. It cuts watering by 90% and reduces our workload to near zero.
VIDEO: How to Use 90% LESS Water With Core Gardening
Core gardening is a game changer for us and we have been using it 3 years in a row now with very amazing success. It cuts watering by 90% and reduces our workload to near zero.
<3 Water With MIGardener.
Hey Luke and team! I saw your core gardening videos a few years ago and have been using it ever since. We used to live in a suburb where I would mulch all my fall leaves and chop all the dead plants from my garden then bury it. I never had to use any kind of added fertilizer and my garden was the envy of all my neighbor. It was the perfect way to use up all that Fall plant material. Now that we have moved to the countryside, I still do the same, with the added benefit of my chicken, rabbits and goat used bedding and manure. I bury the manure and bedding until the ground freezes solid, then bury as much as I can in the Spring again. My garden is even more amazing now that I have manure to use, but you're right, use what you have!
I saw this done on Homestead rescue on a pretty big scale they use an excavator to dig out trenches and then filled them with entire bales of straw
If adding in the fall, would hot manure/straw mix be okay for spring crops? Seems that would be good for the heavy feeders that are planted in the spring.
I saw your earlier post before this season and I tried it this year. I didn't water once and I had great spuds!
This is very interesting. Incidentally, you can grow crops in straw bales, so this all makes so much sense. Thanks Luke!
Aww it's to late for me, I just did 4 raised beds, but next time I will definitely try this system.
Here in SoCal we really need this, not much water available.
Thank you for this information!!!!.
Can we use wood shavings that you use in rabbit cages?
Hi, I'm so glad you decided to review this,I've never heard of it! So I now grow my vegetables in Smart pots. I'm always watering because they dry out so fast. Is this something I could do? I already have soil in them? And how would I incorporate this in my containers? Thanks so much !!
Luke. Do you core every bed?? This will work for my greenhouse since the soil is never exposed to rain. How about leaves???
Sounds like hugelkulture
This seems to be like hugelkultur, but without the mound. Same physics. Thanks Luke!
Looks like an upside down version of the ruth stout method. Except this is more work
A lot like runner bean trenches in the UK, except we use damp newspaper and kitchen scraps.
straw will rob soil of the
nitrogen when decomposing…
Can you used aged wood chip?
I garden mostly in pots and raised beds. I use straw as a mulch on top of my pots but I am wondering if I can try to put some straw halfway down in the pot too. I live in San Diego and the fabric pots dry out very fast. I water every other day in the summer.
Oh. This is a adaptive Ruth Stout gardening method-different yet … I lay down straw, or alfalfa etc. in fall and plant my garden on top of it in spring
We used this method for the first time this year after reading your book. We loved it! Question: when you talk about "charging the cores" either at the beginning or through a dry spell, how much water do you recommend using? I also wondered about inserting a couple short pvc pipes to give direct access to the core for more direct charging. We collect rain water and thought that might be a more targeted way to utilize the rain water, rather that watering over top of the surface, which wouldn't penetrate very far. Thoughts?
Want this rob nitrogen from the plants?
I am in the southern U.S. and had an interesting experience when I did this a couple of years ago. That fall something kept eating off brassica seedlings at the base. One day as I picked up a dying broccoli, I saw a termite scurry down into the soil. I learned that they like brassicas. Replanted with DE in the holes and had no further problem.
Do you worry about the straw seeding? I have a good organic resource here in Eugene Oregon, but have worried about the seeds.
I did not know this was a thing! I guess I accidentally did core gardening when I cleaned up a couple beds and was in too much of a hurry to carry away the weeds, so I just buried the weeds in trenches right in the soil, mulched it, and left it for a while until planting. The pole beans seem to like it! Although I still water every day here in FL, I'm paranoid about my plants wilting.
I used leaves and grass clippings one year, and the following spring it was full of rolly pollies. How to reduce the rolly infestation?
We used core gardening this summer and with the drought we had this year in the west I was so thankful I did. Rarely watered and still had a great garden.
Would pine needles work?
This could be a solution for desertification
You should repeat a similar kind of program next spring. If my observation is pretty much correct, each section of straw was about 2or 3 inches thick ( about 5 to 8 cm in metric). I will try it and yes I WILL let you know the results obtained.