Tuesday, January 24, 2012

INSPIRATION | THINK SPRING

Hello all,

Even though it snowed over the weekend, blah, I know I am getting ahead of Mother Nature but I am anxious for spring and most of all gardening. My latest obsession is called lasagna gardening, also know as sheet composting. This is a no-dig, no-till organic gardening method that results in rich, fluffy soil with very little work from the gardener.  Sounds good, huh? Above is a picture of the beginning building stages of my neighbors lasagna garden.

From what I gather starting an organic vegetable garden involves hours of backbreaking digging, rototilling, and basically starting over with the soil. This method you begin with three layers of black and white newspaper or one layer of used brown cardboard. Simply lay this on top of the ground where you want your garden. Once you lay this layer down, soak it with water to begin the process of decomposition. The grass underneath this layer breaks down quite quickly because the newspaper or cardboard prevents sunlight and virtually smothers the grass.

Once you have the initial layer down, begin building compost on top of it. Now just as you would do when making a compost pile, you must alternate between“brown” and “green” ingredients. Start with layer of “brown”ingredients such as dried leaves, newspaper, and other dead organic materials. Add a layer of “green” material such as fruits and vegetables scraps and trimmings from the garden and grass clippings. Your brown layer should ideally be twice as thick as the green layer.

Here are some other examples of ingredients to use:

• Leaves and Grass Clippings
• Fruit and Vegetable Scraps
• Coffee Grounds
• Tea leaves and tea bags
• Weeds (if they haven’t gone to seed)
• Manure
• Compost
• Seaweed
• Peat moss
• Pine needles
• Spent blooms, trimmings from the garden
• Newspaper and/or cardboard

This method works great with raised beds, which I love the look of. The most important bonus form this technique is you get jillions of earth worms, which I learned from working for Rob at Community Garden, his website  www.youngharvests.com ,  is so important in developing rich soil.

From what I have read you can pretty much start one anytime of the year. The ideal time to start the process is fall so the winter moisture, snow and rain, can cook the ingredients. But I am going to start in the spring so I will need to increase the amount of soil/peat/topsoil to speed up the transformation.

Lasagna gardening is extremely beneficial for the environment. Easy to maintain and will produce delicious produce, you will be the envy of your neighborhood! There are a few books on this topic from the author Patricia Lanza, the original, Lasagna Gardening, Lasagna Gardening for Small Spaces and Lasagna Gardening with Herbs.  I hope I have got you all interested in this and just maybe you will try your hand at gardening this spring. Send me pictures and comments please!

I love her horse trough in the middle, aka rain barrel, so cute and very MacGyverish!

oh, also check out: www.johnnyseeds.com THE BEST!

XXOO