Paper, Paper, Read All About It!

Paper, paper, read all about it! That's the slogan that came out of dear hubby's mouth when we started the lasagna garden at the Ladner Community Garden. To get our garden started we had to lay down sheets of damp newspaper in the area where we wanted a new garden. Are you wondering why newspaper? Newspaper will block out the sun and stop the grass from growing. It also provides a dark damp place and earthworms just love it.



First we needed leaves.There is no shortage of them at this time of year so we saved about ten bags of leaves from our yard. Little did we realize we would need about twenty more bags to complete the garden.



We placed a thick layer of newspaper down and then dumped leaves all over the paper. Wouldn't kids love to have a leaf throwing party doing this?



The leaves were piled over the newspaper about six inches deep. Over the winter the leaves will decompose and the pile will shrink. In the spring it will look like new soil.



This is how the new lasagna garden looked after we placed soil on top. The soil will keep the leaves from blowing away. We only built one third of the garden today so there is lots more work to be done. In the spring we will be able to plant in to this new garden. What will we plant? This is our new fruit garden where we will grow plants like blueberries, raspberries, rhubarb and strawberries. The idea is to grow fruit too large for an allotment bed. Why not grow fruit to use at a community dinner? Isn't that the real reason we like to grow food, to eat it? I know its why I love growing it.