Lasagna Garden

Last year I started a garden on my husbands families farm. We are going to be moving there this December. It is about 20 miles away, so I was not able to be there all the time to give it the watering it needed during this low water past summer. I have 9 beds that are 4x4 which I stared last year as square foot gardens. This past spring I put in a lasagna bed. In the lasagna bed the main things I grew were 12 cherry tomato plants, a few cantaloupe plants and a couple of bean plants.

To our surprise, the cherry tomato plants grew to 8 feet tall! Not only have we had plant growth, from the beginning of July until the frost last week, we were getting at least a 5 quart bucket of tomatoes every other day! In an area where are growing season is so short, never thought I'd actually get melons, we had at least 10 melons that I picked prior to the frost. Phenomenal results!

I am now going to plant the rest of my garden in the lasagna garden. My brother in law has horses, and he grows the hay, so that is readily available to me.  In the other beds, I also have the same tomatoes planted, that only got about 2 ft tall.

I found one of the best reasons to do this type of garden, is the way the beds are able to hold in the moisture. Great way to use whatever water is available!  The lasagna garden may be the way to garden in the future, giving the way are water situation has been lately. As far as I can tell, instead of pulling all the old plants out of the garden, I just cover them up with hay and let them compost over the winter.

Since I have gone to no soil gardening, one of the pluses is being able to get into the garden as soon as the mixture is thawed. There is no tilling of soil, very little time is spent weeding. as there are very few weeds. I am still able to spend in my garden,  instead of spending it pulling weeds, I was able to spend it tending to the vines, planting seeds,etc. Even though a vast portion of my garden froze last week, today I am going to work on getting my garden ready for next spring!