Report on sheet mulching

Dear readers

This is a second year project but we first year RG students helped them set up the garden. This is considered the "food" for the soon to be planted plants. They have plans to plant things like carrots, tomato and cabbage for the rabbits and other small animals.

Sheet mulching, aka instant garden or On site composting, is a very lazy way of making your own garden. The process does not take much time nor effort and it is proven to work.Firstly we chose a space to do the project because it needs to be accessible from all sides. The shape is also an important aspect because animals recognize the shape of a square or circle.The shape is an S shape because it is easily accessible from every side.

The grass is short so the first layer is top soil in the S shape. Then we applied compact grass from the animal cages mixed with their fesses and urine.It has already started to form fungus. We need to keep it wet from the bottom to the top so we add water after every layer has been applied. We then had to insert a bit of green plants for food and Nitrogen. We cut open Cacti and put them on top forming a flat surface. Now we put on cardboard box to keep the existing plants from growing underneath it all and so it then forms part of the compost.

On top of this we applied more green which was ink-berry. This we also drenched in water to keep it nice and wet. The next layer had to be a biodegradable material that breaks down easily so we took saw dust and spread it evenly over the S and applied water.We jumped on the queen of the night in a bag because we needed to squash it for the garden but we ended up cutting them up anyway and we put them on as another layer. We then put on a lot of grass and hay and made it very wet. Everyone had to fetch a container to carry water in because the hose pipe was not connected with the right fitter.

Our last layer, which is called the cosmetic layer, was old leaves picked up from the village ground. We then shaped the S nice and neatly and added more water. When the second years find latties they will use them to protect the garden from the warthog, the emeu and the duiker. The planting of any plants is their project.