Lasagna Gardening Part Two

If you missed Part one see it here.
If you want to see parts of her book go here.

I am very excited today. The weather is awful outside but my excitement for growing my own organic veggies and fruits are warming up. That word organic is funny isn't it? I bet our grandparents would have wondered what we meant by that when they were planting their gardens.

Hopefully you have thought about where you want your garden or container planter to go by now and know just what you want to plant. It is hard to decide isn't it?

I went to the store gardening center at Menard's today and was able to pick up the following seeds: cantaloupe, sweet baby pumpkins, baby cucumbers, baby squash, snap peas and tomatoes. I also got some peat pots starter kits that were on clearance. I went ahead and started those. I will buy some additional plants that I want when the season begins. Here in Northern Indian you can not plant before the last frost is over or you will kill everything. We get snow in May. Yuck.

Whether you start your plants inside or out is up to you just plant according to the planting zone. To see your zone and planting guides go here. I also purchased some peat moss, organic cow manure, some wooden stakes and some biodegradable twine. This should get me started. You don't have to purchase anything because you can use things around your home. Sticks or other types of stakes work fine for marking off footage, string helps show the area and guides plants. You can get manure or use your own compostings.

Let's make some lasagna layers shall we?

Step one: Mark the outline of your garden with string, or even a sprinkle of flour.
The book suggests first gardeners keep it small 4 by 8. I am going to keep mine small and make a few small areas for easy access.

Step two: Using thick, WET pads of newspaper or cardboard lay the layers close together overlapping to keep the weeds out. That is right. You can lay the wet paper right over the grass, the hard packed dirt area that could never grow anything before and right over the weeds. No digging and I ain't kidding!

Step three: Add 2-3 inches of peat moss to cover the paper or cardboard. If you are going to have paths in your garden make sure you cover them with wood chips instead and save the peat moss for the garden.

Step four: Spread 4-8 inches of organic mulch material over the peat moss.

What is organic mulch? Here are some ideas for mulch: animal manures, compost, corn cobs chopped up, grass clippings, hay, leaves chopped up, peat moss, salt hay, sawdust, seaweed/kelp, stalks chopped up, straw, wood ashes.

So continue to layer different mulches one layer over another of whatever you have until the layers reach 18-24 inches high.

The author suggests topping the layers off with wood ashes and or bone meal. I bought some bone meal today and I have lots of wood ashes from the fires out back to top mine off.

That is it that is the first start. I am going to get my layers started this week and will post some pictures. I won't plant until the latter part of may. If your weather is ready for planting you can go on to the next step. I will talk about planting tomorrow.