The Big Reveal: What’s Under the Tarp?

A month ago, we laid down that black silage tarp over our 150 square meter plot. And honestly? The waiting was harder than I expected. There’s something about covering up a space and just… leaving it there for weeks that goes against every gardening instinct.

But today we pulled it back, and here’s what we found:

The grass is dead. Like, properly dead. Brown, dry, crispy dead. I’d estimate 90-95% kill rate across the main area, with just a few yellow-green survivors hanging on around the edges where the tarp seal wasn’t quite perfect. No obvious growth, not many patches that survived – the tarp did its job.

The soil underneath is dry – not surprising given it’s summer and we’ve essentially created a sealed environment. And here’s the interesting bit: there were crickets. So many crickets. They’d clearly been living quite happily under there in their dark, protected space. I’m choosing to see this as a good sign – the soil ecosystem wasn’t sterilized, things were still living underneath.

But here’s what surprised me: the ground is hard. Harder than I expected, even after a month of tarping. The soil is very sandy but completely bound together by all those grass roots from years of being pasture land. There’s definite compaction happening here.

Which brings us to the next step: broadforking.

Why Broadfork? The Gentle Aeration Approach

The Tool and What It Does

For those unfamiliar, a broadfork is essentially a big fork with long tines (30-40cm typically) that you drive into the soil and lever back to lift and aerate without turning the soil over. It looks like something between a garden fork and a medieval torture device.

This is my first time using one, and there’s definitely a technique to it – how you position your body, where you place your weight, the rocking motion to lever it back. Not a huge learning curve, but enough that the first few passes felt a bit clumsy. By the end of the first section, though, it started to feel natural.

The goal here is simple: break up compaction and aerate the soil without destroying its structure.

Why Not Just Hire a Rotary Hoe?

I’ll be honest – the temptation to just hire a rotary hoe was real. It would be faster. It would be easier on my back. It would definitely break up that compaction more thoroughly.

But here’s why we’re not going that route:

1. Soil life preservation

Everything we’ve done so far – choosing not to spray herbicides, using the tarp method instead of chemicals – has been about protecting the soil biology. Tilling destroys that. It rips apart fungal networks that take years to establish. It kills earthworms. It disrupts all the microscopic life we’re trying to nurture.

The broadfork creates channels for air and water without inverting soil layers or shredding the life in it.

2. Cost and hassle

Hiring a rotary hoe means transport, learning to operate it safely, and spending money we don’t need to spend. The broadfork was a one-time purchase that I’ll use for years.

3. Philosophy and replicability

Part of what we’re trying to prove here is that this approach is achievable without expensive equipment or fossil fuel-powered machinery. If someone’s watching this and thinking “I could do that too,” I want the answer to be yes – not “well, if you can afford to hire equipment.”

We’re keeping it low-tech, human-powered, and replicable.

The Reality of Broadforking 150 Square Meters

Let me be clear: this is work. Real, physical, workout-level work.

I’m only getting about 100-200mm depth with the broadfork because of the compaction and that dense mat of grass roots. And you know what? That’s okay. I’m not trying to work the soil deeply right now – I’m just creating air channels, breaking up the surface bind, and loosening things enough for cover crop roots to penetrate.

The soil texture is interesting – very sandy, as expected, but held together surprisingly well by all those roots. It’s like the grass root system created a structural web through the sand.

I’m working through the whole 150sqm, but doing it over the course of a week or two. Not because I have to, but because I’m not in a rush and there’s no point destroying my back when we have time. A couple of hours here, a couple there, and it gets done.

What Broadforking Actually Accomplishes

Here’s what’s happening when I drive that fork in and lever it back:

• Creating vertical channels for air to penetrate deeper into the soil
• Creating pathways for water to infiltrate instead of running off
• Breaking up the grass root mat so it can decompose more easily
• Loosening compaction so cover crop roots (and eventually vegetable roots) can grow
• Doing all of this WITHOUT bringing buried weed seeds to the surface like tilling would

The soil layers stay where they are. The biology stays intact. We’re just opening it up a bit.

Enter the Chickens: Nature’s Tillers

Why Chickens in a Garden Prep Process?

So here’s where it might start to look a bit unconventional: we’re moving chickens into the garden plot.

This isn’t just for entertainment value (though watching chickens work is genuinely satisfying). They’re functional workers with specific jobs to do:

Scratching and surface aeration – Chickens scratch constantly. It’s what they do. That scratching breaks up the surface soil, works in any remaining dead vegetation, and creates a finer texture.

Fertilizing – Chicken manure is high in nitrogen. Every time they poop (which is often), they’re adding nutrients. By the time they’re done, there’ll be a nice layer of fertility worked into the top few centimeters.

Pest control – Remember all those crickets under the tarp? The chickens are absolutely delighted about that. They’re also eating any grubs, beetles, or other soil pests they find as they scratch around.

Final prep – They’re essentially doing the fine finishing work, getting the soil surface ready for seed.

Our Setup

We only have two chickens, so let’s be realistic here – we’re not expecting miracles. Two birds on 150 square meters aren’t going to transform the space. But every bit helps, and we’re learning what works for future integration.

The plan is to leave them in there for 2-3 weeks, depending on when the weather looks right for sowing cover crops (we want rain in the forecast). They’re contained with a combination of the permanent garden fence on one side and temporary electric poultry netting on the others.

No concerns about overgrazing or compaction with just two birds – they’re light, they move around, and the area is large enough that they’re not concentrating their impact.

What Chickens Won’t Do

Let’s be clear about what we’re NOT expecting here:

They’re not going to till the soil for us. They’re not going to eliminate all pests. They’re not going to solve our fertility challenges.

They’re one small element in a larger system. Think of them as the finishing touch, not the main event. The benefits are incremental but genuine.

Integration with Regenerative Systems

This is really about learning how to stack functions in the garden system we’re building. Every element should serve multiple purposes:

• The chickens provide eggs for us
• They manage pests
• They fertilize
• They prepare soil
• Eventually, they’ll be rotational grazers in the garden paths and between beds

We’re figuring out what works now so we can integrate them more systematically as the garden develops. This is as much about observing and learning as it is about the immediate soil prep benefits.

The Cover Crop Strategy: Building Soil Over Winter

What We’re Planting and Why

Once the chickens have done their work and we have rain in the forecast (hopefully end of March), we’re broadcasting a cover crop mix:

• Oats
• Mustard
• Legume blend
• Buckwheat
• Crimson clover

This isn’t some scientifically optimized precision blend. It’s a general-purpose mix I sourced locally that targets what we need:

Nitrogen fixation – The legumes and clover will be pulling nitrogen from the atmosphere and fixing it in the soil. Free fertilizer, basically.

Biomass production – Especially the oats. We want bulk. We want plant material that will eventually become organic matter.

Organic matter for sandy soil – Which is really the main goal here.

Easy availability – I’m using what’s accessible and affordable locally, not chasing down exotic species.

These are all cool-season crops that will be planted in autumn and grow through winter.

Why Cover Crops Are Critical (Especially for Sandy Soil)

Here’s the thing about our soil: it’s sand held together by old grass roots. That’s not going to cut it for productive vegetable growing.

Sandy soil drains fast – sometimes too fast. It holds very few nutrients because water just washes through it. It’s low in organic matter. And every time it rains or we irrigate, we’re losing whatever fertility we’ve added.

I could buy in truckloads of compost and spread it over this space. That would work… for a while. But it’s expensive, it’s a one-time input, and in sandy soil, it breaks down faster than you’d think.

Cover crops are different. They’re doing the work for us, season after season:

Soil building – Every root growing down is adding organic matter. Every leaf and stem is future biomass that will decompose into the soil.

Nitrogen addition – Legumes are actively pulling nitrogen from the air and making it available in the soil.

Weed suppression – A thick stand of cover crops outcompetes anything trying to grow back. Remember, the tarp killed most things, but the soil seed bank is still there.

Erosion protection – Over winter, we’ll have plant cover holding the soil in place instead of bare ground.

Feeding soil life – Every root is exuding sugars and compounds that feed bacteria and fungi. The soil food web is being built while these plants grow.

Living mulch that becomes actual mulch – When we terminate these crops in late winter, all that biomass becomes the mulch layer we plant into for spring.

The Sandy Soil Factor

I can’t emphasize this enough: for sandy soil like ours, cover crops aren’t optional. They’re essential.

You can’t just add compost once and fix sandy soil. It needs ongoing building. Organic matter added to sand breaks down faster than in clay soil. We need a system that continually replenishes it.

Cover crops do this. Every cycle adds more organic matter, more structure, more water-holding capacity, more nutrient retention. Season after season, the soil gets better instead of being depleted.

This is the most cost-effective and labor-efficient way to build our soil. And once established as a practice, it becomes part of the rotation – not a one-time fix.

Timing and Method

End of March is our target, assuming we get rain in the forecast. No point broadcasting seeds into dry soil and hoping.

We’re broadcasting (scattering by hand) rather than drilling. For a mix like this at this scale, broadcasting is the practical choice. Some seeds will end up at non-ideal depth, some will get eaten by birds, some won’t germinate. That’s fine – we’re looking for a thick stand overall, not precision.

Then we wait for rain, hope for good germination, and watch them grow through autumn and winter.

The Termination Plan

Late winter – probably August – we’ll terminate these cover crops. “Terminate” sounds dramatic, but it just means killing them so they stop growing.

The method will be crimping or flattening – basically rolling or crushing the stems so the plants die but stay in place. No tilling, no removal. They’ll become a mulch layer right where they grew.

That mulch layer achieves several things:

• Preserves all the organic matter they’ve created
• Continues feeding soil biology as it decomposes
• Suppresses weeds by blocking light
• Retains moisture
• Creates the perfect environment to plant vegetables into

In spring (September/October), we’ll be planting directly into that mulch layer. The soil underneath will have had months of active biology, root growth, and organic matter addition. That’s what we’re building toward.

The Winter Planting Exception: One Bed for Immediate Production

Why Set Aside a Small Area Now

Look, I understand the value of patience and building soil properly. But I also want to actually grow some food this year.

So while the main 150sqm plot goes through its cover crop phase, we’re setting aside one bed for immediate winter planting. It’s a single row, 13 meters long and 0.8 meters wide. Not huge, but enough for a decent amount of production.

The Cardboard and Compost Method

This bed is getting a different treatment:

We’re laying down cardboard as a weed barrier. Since this bed won’t have the cover crop mulch layer, the cardboard serves that weed suppression role.

On top of the cardboard, we’re adding a compost and topsoil mix – probably 10-15cm depth. This gives us immediate planting medium with good fertility and structure.

Then we plant directly into that.

It’s a shortcut, essentially. We’re buying our way to plantable soil in this one small area while practicing patience with the rest.

What We’re Planting

April planting (autumn, as our weather cools):

• Garlic (definitely – it needs that cold period)
• Leeks
• Broccoli
• Lettuce
• Cabbage

I’m also considering autumn potatoes with some frost cover to experiment with. Zone 10a means we don’t get hard freezes usually, so it might work.

This is winter production to carry us through until the main garden is ready for spring planting.

Why Not Do the Whole Garden This Way?

Buying enough compost to cover 150sqm would be expensive. Really expensive. And while we have plenty of topsoil to create beds with, that doesn’t address fertility and it doesn’t provide mulch or weed suppression.

We want to build the soil itself, from the ground up. We want to create living, healthy soil through natural processes, not just buy it in.

This one small bed is our immediate gratification. It keeps us engaged, gives us something to harvest over winter, and lets us start learning what grows well in our climate and conditions.

Lessons and Observations So Far

What’s Surprised Me

The compaction. Even after tarping, the soil is harder than I expected. Those grass roots created a serious mat, and the sandy soil underneath is more bound together than I thought it would be. The broadfork is helping, but I’m glad we’re not relying on it alone – the cover crop roots will continue breaking things up.

Cricket city. I knew soil life would survive under the tarp, but I didn’t expect quite that many crickets to have taken up residence.

What’s Working Well

The systematic approach. Each step builds on the last. The tarp killed the grass. The broadfork breaks up what the tarp created. The chickens continue what the broadfork started. The cover crops build on all of that.

Not rushing. We could have skipped steps, cut corners, tried to be planting vegetables by now. But taking the time to do each phase properly means we’re building something that will work for years.

Having a follow-through plan. This is the lesson from my past polythene tarping experience: you can’t just kill what’s there and stop. The cover crops prevent regrowth and actively build the soil. That’s crucial.

What’s Next

In the next update, I’ll share:

• How the cover crop germination goes
• What the winter bed produces
• Observations on how the chickens did their job
• How the cover crops develop through winter

And eventually, the big one: terminating the cover crops and planting that first spring garden.

Closing Thoughts

We’re now about 6 weeks into what will probably be a 7-month process before major planting. That’s a long time in garden terms, but every step we’re taking is an investment in soil that will get better every year instead of being depleted.

The broadforking is breaking up compaction without destroying structure. The chickens are adding fertility and life. The cover crops will add organic matter and nitrogen while suppressing weeds and feeding soil biology.

Yes, it takes time. Yes, it takes patience. Yes, it would be easier to just buy our way to the finish line with truckloads of compost and a rented tiller.

But this approach is replicable. It’s affordable. It works with nature instead of against it. And most importantly, it creates soil that regenerates itself – that gets better with each season rather than needing more and more inputs.

That’s what we’re building here. Not just a garden, but a system that works.

The winter bed will give us some immediate production and learning. The main plot will give us long-term abundance and proof that this approach works.

I’ll see you in the next update when we get those cover crops in the ground.

Questions? Experiences with broadforking or cover crops? Let me know in the comments – we’re all learning together.