just me, Leave the mulch in place year round, it keeps the soil in good health and tilth (without the tilling). Add more mulch to the top in late spring or early summer once its warmed up enough to walk barefoot. I don't mow at home, so I can't comment on grass clippings, but I do get some from the neighbors when I'm gathering up their bags of leaves for my leaf mulch piles as a few bag their grass clippings. Lasagna gardening and no till has worked very well for me, I believe I have exceptional soil (I'm on my third year here) and I do very little watering in the heat of the summer and everything grows well. My roses particularly like being smothered in a thick layer of leaf mold keeping them cozy for the winter and moist in the summer. I have hyacinths, daffodils, and tulips coming up through the mulch now (very little chance of weeds here as I left the matted layer of leaves from last fall in place). The daylilies are also poking through in spots. flower, Here's what I would do. Depending on the size of your pond area, dig out an area to make it 4 feet wide and X feet long such that the depth is 1-2 feet (instead of three, and the same depth in the entire area). This defines your planting bed. Now cover the area with newspapers and wet down to keep them in place, this will keep weeds from your digging at bay. At this point you've got a hole in the ground about 4 feet wide and 1-2 feet deep and at least 4 feet long. Fill the bed up as high above ground level as you can gather materials for, at least 6-12 inches higher than ground level (it will settle a lot). Using layers of compost, coffee grounds, leaves, leaf mold, uncomposted materials, logs (bottom layer to use up space), sticks, ashes. The layer of logs is especially helpful for you because they'll hold their form for longer (keeping your plants from sinking too much) and in general because they'll hold a lot of water and give nutrients to your plants for a long time as fungi break them down. Save some finer materials, like the compost, leaf mold, and coffee grounds to make a smoother surface layer. You can also add a layer of soil to the surface (preferably under a layer of fine mulch) to hold seeds, or just put plants directly into the mix. The first year you'll need to water regularly and a herculean amount. But in following years you will be amazed at the productivity and water retention of this area. Cheers, Kyle

Hi I made "beds' composed of rocks and expanding foam and confined the top soil in them . About 1/2 of the total bottom. You can't boil the soil obviously lol so I put it in buckets with water. remove the floating stuff and poured off the foam tha forms . let it set overnight ,poured off the dirty water. Took 3 washings and then it settled down. Put this into the beds (there's alot of sand in top soil) about 4 inches deep you can compress it untill you get about 3 times the volume . Covered this with an inch of fine gravel. The other sections of the floor are covered with acrylic chips and stones. I run 1600 GPH pump using only foam filter Had to fill very slowly but after the second fill it remained fairly clear. Run the tank one week pH remained above 6.5. Would have preferred to have filled it entirely with rainwater but only have 80 gallon storage tank. Ran another week and proceded to plant. This is the tank that contains the Lace plant that has now broke dormancy for the third time. IMO the main problem with them is they don't get enough nutrition during growth. I also believe dormancy is induced by daylight hours not temps or water comp. All the rooted plants have grown fantastic. 3 kinds of swords 3 kinds of crypts and dwarf water lily. The swords are now touching the surface so are over 24 inches tall Crypts are ten. Val has covered the entire bottom. remains under 10 inches though. Something keeps chewing the WL leaves so have had no flowers or floating leaves. What is odd is I'm having trouble with Java fern!! lol Maybe too much current as I run 1600 gph with foam filter. Anyway these are by far the healthiest looking plants I've grown. Not sure if it's the top soil or the sunlight?? gary

Just want to say thanks for that idea! We currently use pallets for our compost bin but I have other compost piles that are not contained and like your idea of using logs. Living in a forest we have lots of those and I think it would look better than pallets. I'm in a different zone so don't know whether what you've done will work. I've had bad results with trying to winter any plants in pots no matter how well insulated so no longer do this.

Does anyone have experience with weed guard plus (https://www.weedguardplus.com/products.php?cat=8) in orchards for weed management? I am looking for a good organic method for weed management for 4,000 sleeping eye trees. Furthermore does anyone have experience with using leaf litter as mulch for apple trees? Risk of disease too high? What diseases?