Gettin’ My Hands Dirty

So, flower bed is ready to plant in. I have spent about thirty minutes to an hour or so several days this past week getting it finished up. I got the second layer of concrete bags in place last weekend and started layering the “lasagna.” For this bed, I started with several layers of newsprint to kill weeds. Next, I heaped on a layer of compost that has been ‘cooking’ in my pile in the backyard all winter (man, this stuff is beautiful!) and then I topped this off with a bag of leaves that the yard guys had bagged up back in the fall. Next were two bags of general potting soil, spread to about two inches or so. Then, I went with compost again, a couple of bags of aged manure (old cow poop, as Harrison calls it!) and another layer of potting soil.

I’m planning on putting the blueberries in tomorrow, and perhaps some of the seedlings I’ve been nurturing in the garage. I might hold off on those, though, and let them harden off a little bit before moving them. I also got Harrison some bush bean seeds today, so I’ll probably line the front of the bed with those, too, at some point.

I am debating putting any kind of decorative mulch on the top of the bed. The nature of the lasagna garden is that it kind of smooshes down a bit over the course of the season and I will probably be adding more layers as necessary. To this end, I think that I might just leave the soil and top with leaves in a month—I’ve got eight more bags, so I think I’m ok for now. At the very least, I need to mulch around the berries with some pine straw—they like the acidity of the pine and it helps keep in moisture.

The paper will be removed from the bags in about a month or so. The neighbors all think I’m a crazy lady right now, but I know this is going to be awesome, so I don’t really care.

Also, disregard the butt-ugly bed up against the house. I’m intending on lasagna-ing that one up pretty soon, too, but with far fewer layers. I’m going to paper around the bushes and the pot tree (not shown), mulch on top of that, maybe a layer of cow poop and a top layer of soil and call it good. I think it will plant pretty well. I’m hoping so, anyway. Harrison talked me into getting him some cactus seeds the other day, so I figure those will go into the pot tree, since it doesn’t matter if I forget to water them occasionally. I seem to do really well with beds, but forget to water the containers. D’oh!

More updates to follow…