Garden Box: No Fertilizer, Irrigation, and Little Weeding (World Bank Food Insecurity)

Experimenting with growing some of my own food I made a garden box, used some old fencing I'm replacing, and a net to protect it from critters. I'm not a big gardener and I'm not always around so I don't want anything high maintenance. 

In this case, I did not weed or water at all. I only put fresh dirt and buried a number of seeds. No fertilize or compost added. I found a few rag weed and Devil's beggar tick but they were easy to remove.

 Amazingly almost everything is growing healthy except a few plants that got crowded out by other plants. A better planting design would help. The overall process worked well. 

The key things I think that made a difference is partial shade and sunlight so its not getting beat on all day in the global warming sun. Secondly, the dirt was fresh, and thirdly it rained a lot. 

If you were wondering why it can be helpful to grow a little more of your food you can read World Bank July 17th, 2023 Food Security Update. They discuss rising food costs. Maybe farms could consider replanting into paddocks bordered with trees to create partial shade, protect the soil, reduce the need for watering and maybe less/no fertilizer (Thinking out loud. One must check the science of it to see if it makes sense.)

The next goal is to put in a small apple orchard of 4 apple trees and 2 cherry trees (helping the bees). I removed a large dying tree so now I have space.