Sheetmulching - Building Backyard Soil in San Francisco

I just started gardening to grow my own food this year. We don't have much yet because we're renovating some of the landscape ties in the backyard, but so far we have had mesclun, chard, strawberries, an apple tree that I think is a Gravenstein, artichokes and a tiny crop of beets. We are about to embark on installing a large veggie garden bed; my vision is to one day grow 80-90% of the veggies we eat at home! Check out my gardening adventures here: http://togetherinfood.wordpress.com/

Your work is inspiring.

Kudos to Ann - those beds look gorgeous! I don't have the time or $$ right now to build such beautiful beds with wood or other materials, but I am doing the simple mounding method. Put in one bed in a shady spot last winter and grew greens all year. Now i am putting in another bed, using cocoa hulls as my carbon as well as some of my neighbor's pruning/leaf trash. I compost all my pulled weeds for nitrogen.

I used newspaper on my last bed and it was very successful. I just rebuilt it and in both of the new ones I use cardboard. I am also beginning to do 'Bokashi" composting with all my scraps. Since we live in a small 3rd floor flat with very little room and i do not drive, it's sometimes challenging to get my materials. But i have help from my partner and hope to switch to wood chips from cocoa hulls when we can get out to SF Greenwaste.

I will cover both beds wth spent potting soil and - probably - bagged, purchased compost. One bed will have more greens and the other - favas of course! We don't have soil here in the Haight, just sand dunes, so you really have to build your own.

If anyone is doing Bokashi - let me know! Hope to be volunteering at HVF soon!