Springing Forth

Back in mid-March I spent a weekend out in the back yard putting together my lasagne garden. If you were here helping me lug compost from the bins at the far end of the yard to dump them in the new garden (then to discover that ants had taken up residence in the compost bin) you are a true friend. You know who you are. You get the first jar of salsa. And there, tucked safely in the corner where the sun room meets the back of the house we discovered shoots of green with tiny buds that by today had blossomed into the sunshiney brightness that only daffodils possess. And I don't even really LIKE daffodils. But hey, it's a flower and it's growing in my yard! Without any assistance from me. Which is probably all the better given my track record with plants and such. What's a lasagne garden? Since my thumb isn't naturally green, and since the thought of turning sod wasn't getting me so excited I bounced out of bed on Saturday mornings, I thought that if there was going to be a vegetable garden out back, there had to be a better way. Lasagne gardening is also known as sheet composting and there are books and websites - all of which I hope aren't leading me astray. We have layers of wet cardboard (a good use for some of those packing boxes), leaves, compost, topsoil, leaves, compost, etc... all sitting moistly under a heavy tarp, cooking away until the end of May. It's where I hope to plant some heirloom tomato seedlings and a few other things that are currently germinating on top of the boiler or already sprouted and sitting in the kitchen window. I've put the garden where we are planning to eventually put a patio. My plan is simply to move the accumulated garden soil to another suitable location in the yard. Like maybe where the sunroom is now. In the meantime, I've done us a favour because the grass where the patio is supposed to go will be gone. Voila! Now we can install patio stones. I'm thinking slate.