One of the things that I've begun doing this year is to expand on my outreach efforts to new gardeners in my community. It's not that I'm an expert on all things garden related; by no means do I fit that bill. I have however learned a lot of things through trial and error, and this spring my wife and I attended a two and a half month training program called the Master Gardener program. I learned a lot of new information there as well, and it's really helped with my efforts.

In talking to neighbors and friends, a few of which have been affected by the global economic downturn, one of their concerns is that starting a garden can be a costly adventure. That is particularly true here in northern Utah where we call home. We are very near to the shore of the Great Salt Lake, and because of that our soil is salty and alkaline. Add to that the fact that it is a sedimentary soil that over thousands of years has become hard pack clay, and it's not what most would call the optimum conditions for starting a new garden. Because of these factors and because Mel Bartholomew of square foot gardening fame began his whole movement in Utah just a half hour from where we live, raised bed gardening is very big here. It's not cheap to get started though, so I felt concerned with telling people that were already tight on money that they should spend a good size chunk of it on starting a raised bed. At the same time, I know that most people starting gardens directly in the ground have a couple of years of amending the soil ahead of them before they really starting seeing the "fruits" of their labors.

Enter the "Lasagna Garden." I picked up a book at our local thrift store last summer about a garden called a lasagna garden. It wasn't what it sounded like, a garden to grow lasagna ingredients, but rather was a raised bed garden that could be started with little investment and promised little effort for good return. The basics of what this is all about is building a garden bed from miscellaneous organic materials and letting them essentially compost in place to build a fertile soil that can support a garden.

I hate to suggest anyone try something that I haven't done myself, so, last fall, as a part of our "liberate the lawn" efforts in the back yard, we decided to give it a shot as a sort of experimental garden plot for this year. We already had plans to build a new raised bed there, so it was easy to just modify our plans to go with this new idea. We built the raised beds along our fence line using the same type of recycled concrete blocks that we'd used for the rest of our yard landscaping and, after breaking up the ground a bit with a pitch fork, layered the bottom of the bed with cardboard pieces that we got for free from work.

Next I filled the bed with layers of organic material like I was putting together a sort of organic compost lasagna. I took pictures of the process.

To fill the bed, I pulled over a thin layer of soil from the existing raised bed that I was tying into. Onto that I added layers of material like straw, homemade compost, grass clippings, composted chicken manure, course sawdust that was used as chicken bedding, coffee grounds from the local coffee shop and some left over peat and vermiculite that I happened to have on hand at the end of the season.

Knowing that it would sink, I filled it very full and left it to sit over the winter. The fall rains soaked it, the winter snows insulated it, and by early this spring we had what was beginning to look a lot like soil. A few months later and I dug into into it to plant my first crops; a mix of different plants that I hope will give me a good idea of lasagna gardening's benefits for different plants. I've planted watermelons, casaba melon, tomatoes, bush cucumbers, peppers and eggplants in it. The soil was soft and friable, and I needed no tools at all to plant the starts.

This picture was taken a little less than a month ago. So far, I am VERY impressed with the results of this method. The rich organic content of this bed drains well while at the same time holding a good amount of water. Below the surface, the soil looks to be very rich and fertile. This is the first time I've been able to get watermelons to grow well at all, and I'm already starting to see set fruit on my pepper plants.

If you're feeling a pinch in your pocketbook, or maybe have friends that are, this is a nearly zero cost alternative to building a raised bed garden that can support a lot of garden and can be worked very easily. It seems to be a good alternative and is certainly one that I look forward to exploring further.

All the best.

Paul~

You can reach Paul Gardener by email, or check his personal blog at A posse ad esse  

Every year, right around the peak of spring, we do a whole bunch of yard clean up work in our front yard. It’s usually in that period around Mothers day when we pick up a few trays of annuals at our local nursery and it usually takes the good part of a weekend to do. This year was no exception in that regard.

An interesting thing happened this year when I got to this part of the garden though. It’s one of my favorite places because it's all Columbines that self seed and get bigger every year. As I was cleaning up, I was wondering why the flowers didn't look quite right this year. So I looked a little closer.

Holy Crap! Infestation! The aphids were here and they were here in force!

Now it's not uncommon for me to get some aphids. Not even uncommon to find them out in force from time to time and I deal with the problems as they arise. This was by far the earliest and most intense infestation that I've ever had though.

At first glance I found that almost all the columbines on this side of the garden were under siege. In fact, I was about to break into the organic pesticide. I rarely ever do that, but this just seemed overwhelming. Before I did, I luckily looked a little closer and found something incredible. An ecosystem had developed right there.

Because of the abundant food supply, the ladybugs (Yes I know they're not bugs, they're beetles. That's the name I grew up with so that's what I call ’em OK?) had moved in and were reproducing like rabbits. They are natural predators to the aphid, so I thought it best to let them do their work. Also, I'm willing to sacrifice a few flowers in order to foster a healthy population of these beneficial insects for the rest of the season.

In that vein I decided to remove all the flower stalks from the plants and place them upside down in a bucket, then off to the trash. They were the most infested part of the plant so I wanted to give the beetles a head start on clearing them up. Aphids generally don’t have wings, although they can develop them for purposes of relocating when the food source is endangered or depleted, so I wasn’t worried about them coming out of the trash and returning. Don't worry, there were plenty left for the bugs to feed on.

WARNING ... EXPLICIT photos follow ...

Ok, they’re not really “explicit”, but I did find a regular lady bug love fest happening on some of the under story branches as I was pruning them.

I kind of felt a little peeping Tom-ish for taking these, but in the interest of education I'm willing to go the extra mile for you.

And this is "The act." If you look closely you'll see the two bodies of the beetles protruding from under their wing covers. And that kids, is how the birds and the beetles goes... MMMM K?

Here you can see the collection of yellow egg sacks lain neatly under a leaf and Mom heading off to eat more aphids no doubt.

So then, who’s this handsome little guy? Well, he is the larvae form of the Ladybird beetle. From this phase it'll go through a pupa phase and then emerge as the lady bug that we're all familiar with. So, if you see these guys crawling around the garden, they are your friend!

In the Short term, I had to make a concession to the aphids in that I gave up my flowers for this year. I have others. The bigger point is found in the long term view however. In that perspective I've helped to foster a natural ecosystem and life cycle that will benefit me and my garden later this year.

If the problem had persisted, I’d have had to go to the next step which, to me, would be to entirely cut off all green growth and let the plant try again. I’m happy to say however that this battle seems to have gone in my favor. The aphids have moved on to other plants where the battle continues but are in no where near the same numbers. And as for the lady bugs, well, I’ve seen more this year so far that I think I have in quite a few springs. So far so good I’d say!

All the best.

Paul~

You can reach Paul Gardener by email, or check his personal blog at A posse ad esse