Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Spring Fever - It's just a tease......



A few weeks ago I was in my back yard, pruning my tree, in a tank top and shorts. I was sweating in the sun. Two days later I was freezing my butt off.

Every time the first warm sun hits me, I get that itch. I want to dig, I want to plant. Then the freeze gets me down.

This time, instead of throwing myself into planting beautiful baby plants that freeze to death, I built new planter boxes to hold my new "Lasagne Garden". I live in an area with stubborn clay soil (perfect for cobb ovens.....if you need some), and hard pan that is only about 2 ft down. Stinks for planting & growing. I read an article about farmers in the dessert using this planting method, so here I go.

If you Google "Lasagne Gardening", you will get several variations. Basically, you building a compost pile and planting in it. You alternate layers of green & brown material: grass, compost, leaves, straw, etc....

I laid down newspaper to kill the weeds, covered it with compost, bone meal, blood meal, alfalfa straw, straw...repeat. I am letting this settle a bit, then repeating again...and planting directly into it in a few weeks when my sprouts are ready.