No Pain, No Swearing,  No Sweat, No-Dig Garden beds!

1. start of a new no-dig garden. soil is hard clay 2. cardboard flattened and soaked. 3. Straw and pockets of compost or soil for plants are added.
4.more paths form a mandala, sticks on top to deter chickens, cloches made from bottles. 5. 2 years on, the soil is improved and plants filling all the spaces.

No dig gardens are easy. There is a good video by Robin Francis called the Mandala Garden. I have had most success with beds that start on a stable edge and can be extended rather than beds in the center of a grasses area. No-dig gardening was pioneer and founded by Esther Deans, she wrote fabulous books about No-dig gardening and has been to visit our site and although we do it slightly differently because we don't use hard edges, she encouragingly approved!

No-Dig garden beds on flat land

No dig gardens are easy and there is a good video by Robin Francis called the mandala garden. Start your garden from a stable edge forming a garden that can be extended rather than siting your garden beds in the center of a grassy area.
No-dig beds on flat areas:
1. Collect a lot of newspapers and cardboard, I like to leave them in packs outside to get wet in the rain.
2. Flaten the area and dig out the strong weeds such as grasses from a stable edge (a brick wall, a shaded or weed-free area) place paper then cardboard securely into this edge, overlap all the cardboard about 10 inches. you can establish a stable edge to fight grasses with larger plants directly in the soil like arrowroot, or lemongrass and shrubs.

3. Plan a neat edge (you can lay the hose or some string for temporary guide, then step back to the center of your planned garden start laying cardboard in the center and work around this center overlapping in a fan shape until you have the bed filled with cardboard, circular beds are far more weed resistant than square.
4. Once you have the edge defined neatly in cardboard, no pieces sticking out too far, place rocks or pots onto this edge.
5. With a sharp spade cut next to the edge into the lawn so that runners are severed (we found this vital for kikuyu)
6. Cover the entire area with mulch; keep covering it as mulch becomes available.
7. Let the mulch mature. If you have abundant water this can be sped up a bit with watering.
8. Check for weed growth in the beds BEFORE planting any plants.
9. If there is grass coming through, scrape back the mulch and plaster this area with paper and cardboard. Increase the thickness of mulch too. Wait again!
10. Finally when you have checked that the old lawn beneath the new garden is dead you are ready to plant you seedlings and trees. In our garden we have to wait 18months. If you don't have this amount of time to wait, plant only annuals and repeat the process (steps 1-9) after harvesting your fruits (eg. Melons) and vegetables. Planting into your garden is truly the fun part - insert your little seedlings with just a handful of compost or soil, mulch up the plant. You can add a rock to increase condensation harvest to the seedling. Keep the area watered in early period as these plants do not have rising moisture from the soil.

No-dig beds on sloping areas:

I use underlay, the one piece of old underlay is used again and again to ensure it doesn't have a store of toxins in it.

1. I kill the weeds by smothering with cardboard covered in carpet or just straight carpet.

 2. dig out the strong weeds such as grasses from your stable edge place paper then cardboard securely into this edge, overlap all the cardboard about 10 inches.

3. Do not start in the center, start at the top as the cardboard slips pretty badly when you walk on it. AND you want the overlap to trap any rain water, not shed it (as with roof tiling.)

5. at intervals, lay sticks onto the cardboard ON CONTOUR these help hold the mulch.

Continue with steps 5 - 8 as above.

© Leisure Coast Permaculture Visions For more information, e-mail us at