Day One of Lasagna Gardening

The day started bright and early. I got my post out on the Super Moon, and I started Chipotle Ribs going in the crockpot. My friend Jorge arrived right on time: 8 a.m. One photo of the garden before we start so you have an idea of the area and get a feeling for the layout of it.

Vege garden before we start

We were starting with 4 bags of steer manure and 8 bags of peat moss. We had quite a bit of newspaper, and the leaf layer leaves came from the lower part of our yard. The compost has been brewing for quite a few years and is really good soil.  My layers will be as follows:

**Newspaper
**Peat moss
**Leaves
**Peat moss
**Steer Manure
**Peat moss
**Compost

We started out by loosening the ground around the raspberries, pulling a few weeds and removing some plants for later transplanting.

Breaking ground

We decided to use the rototiller to break the ground up before we start the layers.

Rototilling the bed

As Jorge was rototilling, I followed with the rake to sort out some of the weed clumps. I removed these while Jorge finished with the rototilling.

Rototilling is done and we are good to go

Before we start the ground gets leveled.

Leveling the ground

We start with the newspapers, and overlap the sheets. The newspaper will act as weed block.  We started at the back of the garden.

Starting the layers

Once the paper was down, we hosed it so that it was soaking wet.  Next we added about a one inch layer of peat moss.  This was followed by a layer of old leaves that I took from a non-weedy area of our garden.  We followed this with another layer of peat moss, followed by steer manure, and more peat moss.

6 layers are down

Here we are finishing up the area by topping it with compost.

Final layer of compost

Once we got into a rhythm, we moved along at a pretty good clip. There is quite a bit more area as we cleared more than I ever have before.  And, I did not calculate the are as well as I thought that I had, and we had to stop for they day.

Stopping here…

We had a lovely lunch made by my husband, and figured out what I needed to get for next weekend. Here is another view from above.

View from above

It might have looked like Jorge was doing all the work, but I did stop every now and then to take photos of our progress so that I could share this experience with you!

Next week when we finish up, if I have the energy, and I must say that I am pooped today and ache in places I didn’t know could ache like it does, we will start planting! Wahoo! Stay tuned!

Read Full Post »

Lasagne in the Garden

My friend Kathy told me about a thing called lasagne gardening.  She seems to have great success with this method and because of this, and the fact that my plants are just about ready to be planted I thought I would give it a go.

Here is what I have learned about this type of garden:

The garden bed is in layers.  After the first layer of newspaper, the next layer will be peat moss.  Every other layer that you choose to do is peat moss.  So, in essence, you are creating a lasagne in the garden with layers of food for the plants!  And the peat moss that you use can be considered the noodles!

Lasagne garden layers – Drawing from DesperateGardener com

What Kathy told me is so cool about this kind of garden is that there are very few weeds and whatever weeds you do get pull up really easily.  Also, that once you get your layers down, you can plant right away.  Sounds to good to be true?  Well, we shall find out.

The plan for tomorrow is to rake up what leaves I have remaining in the yard from the last fall season.  I have a bunch of newspaper courtesy of a pal from work, and Kathy has additional for me.   I will be buying 3 bags of peat moss and two bags of manure.  The rest I have here.

My plan for my layers:  Newspaper, followed by peat moss.  Next layer will be the raked up leaves followed by peat moss.  The next layer will be the manure followed by, yes, peat moss.  Then this layer will be topped with the compost that I have been accumulating for the last 5 years.   My layers, with the exception of the newspaper, which kills the weeds and relieves me of having to rototill, will all be about 1″ thick.  Once this is all together, the garden will be ready to plant.  I will hold off one more week to plant everything around Mother’s Day.  This also gives me time to acclimate the plants from the greenhouse to the natural temperatures outside.

I also read about this type of gardening from a book Kathy loaned me called “Lasagne Gardening,” written by Patricia Lanza.  One of the things that struck me from what I read in this book is that with this type of gardening, plants can be planted closer together than what is recommended on the seed packets.  OK, so I am going to give this a go, and the best part is you get to come along with me on this trip! So stay tuned for updates!

Read Full Post »

Interesting Fun Facts…

I wanted to write something just for fun! Do you want to have some fun too? OK — Well let’s go!

** Did you know that the second biggest tourist attraction in the State of California right behind Disneyland is visiting wineries?

** Antarctica is the only body of land on the planet not owned by any country. It also has 70% of the world’s fresh water, and amazingly is the driest area of the planet with only 2″ of rain annually.

** Canada has more lakes than any other country in the world.

** The first paved road in the world is in Detroit, Michigan. The name of the road: Woodward Avenue.

** Istanbul, Turkey is the only country that is on two continents: Asia and Europe.

** All lakes in the State of Ohio are man-made.

** The first city to reach a population of one million was Rome, Italy. Every continent has a city named Rome.

** One percent of US roads are unpaved.

** Angels Falls in Venezuela drops 3,212 feet. This is 15 times higher than Niagara Falls.

** The Amazon Rainforest supplies the earth with 20% of the world’s oxygen.

** Peat Moss bogs do the most damage to the world’s ozone layer giving off methane gas into the atmosphere. The largest is located in Western Siberia and is the size of France and Germany combined.

** The wettest spot on the planet is Lloró, Colombia, which averages 523″ of rain per year.

** Antelope Canyon, in Arizona is one of the most unusual rock formations in the world. Navajo Indians named the place: “The Place Where Water Runs Through Rocks.” The rock formations were cut out by flash floods.

** Commonwealth Bay in Antarctica is the windiest spot on Earth with wind speeds of up to 200 miles and hour.

** Damascus, located in Syria, is the oldest inhabited city. According to archeologists, they believe the city has been around since somewhere between 8,000-10,000 B.C.

** Water that flows out of the Amazon River into the ocean remains drinkable to about 200 miles out from the mouth of the river.

** In Montana they counted the cows and they counted the people and discovered that there are more cows than people!

Do you have an interesting and fun fact? Share it with me!

Read Full Post »