Follow my own lazy beds this year
I came across this idea in an article, "Bedmaking made easy", by Joyce Russell (in The Kitchen Garden, #55, of April, 2002)
Farmers in Ireland traditionally got around pest and disease problems by shifting their vegetable plot around each year - and in the following year this would be allowed to revert to pasture. This could only work with a labour-saving method of breaking in new ground - hence "Lazy Beds"! They were commonly planted with potatoes, but most other crops (brassicas, onions, courgettes, French beans, lettuce) all do well. Not root crops, though - so no carrots.
I'm trying the technique to clear a badly overgrown part of my allotment - very heavy clay soil, compacted, with a three inch mat of couch grass, raspberry cane, bramble root, and plum tree suckers. It will be interesting to compare this with my normal practice!
How I've been doing it
- Cut down any tall growth, mow the grass as short as possible, and dig out the really tough stuff (the brambles, plum suckers, and docks). Mark out the beds - see below for planning beds on a new plot.
- Lay a thick layer of manure or compost in a line, straight on to the ground - about 2ft 6in wide, and as long as you wish. Allow 18 inches of clear ground on each side of the line of manure.
- Plant your potatoes now, tucking them under the manure, in two rows, at least 4 inches in from the side of the manure - you might want to stagger the rows, to get the wider spacings for maincrop potatoes.
- On one side of the bed, cut a straight line with a spade, parallel to and 18 inches away from the manure edge. Now cut strips of turf, so that they have a "hinge" at the manure edge, and fold the sods over the top of the manure. This will cover half of the row.
- Do the same down the other side of the bed - keep the bed sides parallel.
- Dig the newly exposed soil from each side of the lazy bed, break it up with a fork, and turn it on top of the turned sods - aim for a nice level surface, with a good covering of soil, and flatten the top with back of your spade.
- Some ideas for vegetable planting - brassica transplants, sweetcorn and squash seedlings, a sowing of broad beans, peas, or salad crops.
- For all the effort involved, it's worth a quick broadcast sowing of a green manure in the exposed trenches - I'm trying phacelia, field beans, buckwheat, and some of the clovers. Or even a few nasturtiums, tagetes, or poached egg plant? Why not?
- My daughter has spotted the potential for the site's sunflower growing competition - an extra 12-18 inches height, for no effort on her part. Just don't tell anybody!
One "lazy bed" - finished! How many more do you have to do?
Looking after the bed
As the potatoes grow, earth them up with more soil from between the beds.
If weeds push through the sides of the lazy bed, pull them out while the potatoes are small. You'll need to do this every ten days or so, at least until the haulms are big enough to smother weeds themselves.
Come harvest time, dig potatoes carefully from the side, or any other vegetable crop - and remove any remaining weeds.
In Autumn
Turn the soil from the beds back into the hollows. Result? One level plot of cultivated soil. That's the idea, at least.
On light sandy soils, the manure in the lazy beds should have retained moisture in the heart of the bed, while on my heavy clay soil, improved drainage and the manure should help break up the soil.
Planning lazy beds to clear an overgrown plot
At the moment, I am so impressed with the idea of lazy beds, that I would certainly use this technique to clear any new plot I take on. Six weeks ago, the experience of clearing half my plot the "traditional" way left me convinced I would never again tackle a new plot - and certainly never, ever contemplate a second plot.
But lazy beds have (so far) proved to involve less work, quicker to complete. More important, although a bed is a hard afternoon's work, it is so much more pleasant building it on a fresh spring day, than "traditional" clearing and digging on a cold, wet, miserable November day.
- Aligning the beds - traditionally, farmers in Ireland and West Scotland laid the beds following the slope; they needed to let the rain drain away for the beds to dry out a bit. Here in Leeds, we are in a "rain shadow", so I have laid my beds out across the slope to retain what rain we get.
- Spacing the beds - lazy beds could be a great way of progressively bringing an overgrown allotment under cultivation. I started placing my beds close together to get a quarter plot into use. Now, however, I leave a 5-6 foot space between each bed - a space I'll keep cut short throughout this year (goodbye, couch grass!), and in which I'll do another lazy bed next year.