Lasagna Garden Ingredients

Lasagna gardening (or sheet composting) is an efficient, easy method for making a new garden bed. To make a lasagna garden, organic matter is added in layers (hence the term "lasagna garden," coined by garden writer Patricia Lanza in her great book on the subject) wherever you want a new garden bed. The layers break down over time, and you are left with a nutrient-rich, fluffy soil in which to grow your flowers, herbs or vegetables.

The best way to build a lasagna garden is to alternate layers of "brown" (carbon-rich) materials with "green" (nitrogen-rich) materials.

Here are some of the best items to put in your lasagna garden, organized by "greens" and "browns":

"Greens" for the Lasagna Garden

Fruit and vegetable scraps Grass clippingsCoffee grounds, tea bags, tea leavesSeaweedWeeds that haven't set seedTrimmings and deadheads from the garden

"Browns" for the Lasagna Garden

Shredded paper, newspaperPine needlesStrawPeat mossFall leaves

It's best to start your lasagna garden with a layer of newspaper at least three sheets thick, moistened so it doesn't blow away. Cover that with peat moss, compost, or manure, then start stacking your other organic materials over that. If you want to plant right away, be sure to add in several layers of compost or peat. If you're building your lasagna garden in fall for spring planting, then this doesn't matter as much because the organic matter in the garden will have plenty of time to break down over the winter, and it will be perfect to plant in.

Growing Organic Lettuce

Water

The most important factor in succeeding with lettuce is meeting its moisture requirements. Because lettuce is shallow rooted and comprised mainly of water (nearly 95% water, actually) it simply will not grow if you let the soil dry out. The roots of lettuce reside in the top three to four inches of soil. If you stick your finger into the soil and the top inch is dry, you need to water. This may require watering several times per week in hot, dry weather.

Fertilization

Fertilization is also important. If you are growing in soil that is full of organic matter, you may not need to fertilize. However, providing your lettuce with nitrogen-rich fertilizer will keep your plant growing well and producing regularly. Fish emulsion is an ideal organic fertilizer for lettuces. Apply the fish emulsion at half of the recommended dosage every two weeks. It is best to apply the diluted fish emulsion directly to the soil. You can use it as a foliar feed as well, but be sure to wash your lettuce really, really well before eating it.

Mulching

As with anything in the garden, lettuces benefit from a good layer of mulch. Install a two to three inch layer of organic mulch, such as wood chips, straw, leaves, or grass clippings around the lettuce, being sure to leave a little space around the plant to prevent rot. This layer of mulch will help retain moisture, keep the soil cool, reduce the amount of weeding you have to do, and keep the lettuce clean by preventing soil from splashing up on the leaves when you water.

Pests

Lettuce is bothered by very few pests and diseases. Slugs are its biggest enemy, and they can be thwarted by setting out a saucer of beer to trap them in, or by sprinkling diatomaceous earth or crushed eggshells around your plants. These sharp substances cut the slugs' underbellies when they slide across it, and kills them.

Aphids can also be a problem. If they are, try knocking them off with a blast of water from the hose or try a homemade spray to get rid of them. Cutworms can also be a problem, and the best way to protect against them is to install a collar made of thick paper or cardboard around the base of any newly-planted lettuce seedlings.

If your pests are of the long-eared, four-footed variety, the best defense is to install a metal fence around the garden, or around the bed in which you are growing your lettuce. You can also try sprinkling cayenne pepper on the plants to deter the rabbits.

Lettuce is easy to grow, as long as you meet its basic requirements. And the benefits of doing so are well worth it: being able to harvest salads full of homegrown, tasty, organic lettuce mere minutes before mealtime is a luxury that you'll appreciate throughout the growing season.

How to Grow Zucchini

Learning how to grow zucchini and other summer squashes in your garden is like buying an insurance policy for your garden. Once you have a couple of thriving squash plants, your garden will provide plenty of delicious, fresh food for your family. In fact, in terms of the amount of food produced per plant, summer squashes are impressive. There's a reason that the stereotype of vegetable gardeners who hand out zucchinis to everyone they know exists, after all. And once you know the basics of growing zucchini, you can be that gardener, too.

What Are Summer Squashes?

Summer squashes, such as zucchini, crookneck squash, pattypan squash, and others, are classified as Curcurbita pepo, as opposed to winter squashes and pumpkins which generally belong to either C. maxima or C. moschata. Members of C. pepo do not store well, unlike their winter squash relatives, so they are absolutely perfect when eaten fresh and young -- baby summer squashes are absolutely delicious, and can be a rather pricey treat unless you grow your own.

Planting Zucchini and Summer Squash

Summer squash is grown very easily from seed. You can either start seeds indoors, three to four weeks before your last frost date, or sow them directly in the garden after all danger of frost has passed. Plant seeds in hills of six seeds, and thin to the three strongest seedlings after they have their first true leaves. Summer squash should be planted in full sun, in rich, well-drained soil that has been amended with compost and manure -- these plants are heavy feeders!

Growing Zucchini and Summer Squash

The two main things you can do to keep your summer squash plants healthy and productive are to provide plenty of water and to fertilize regularly. Water your plants when the top inch of soil is dry (test by poking your finger into the soil) and then, water deeply and gently so the water percolates down into the soil -- this will encourage the plants to send its roots deeper into the soil and they'll be less likely to suffer in hot, dry weather. Side dress your squash plants monthly with compost, composted manure, or vermicompost, and give them a weekly foliar feed of fish emulsion.

Pests and Diseases

Healthy summer squash plants rarely suffer from pest and disease problems, but there are four main issues squash growers seem to face:

All in all, summer squash is easy to grow, and will provide you with a bountiful harvest. Before you know it, you'll be sending friends and relatives home with armfuls of zucchini from your very own garden.

Sun Dried Tomatoes

Besides the luxury of being able to go out my side door daily and harvest my own organic greens, beans, squash, and tomatoes, I love being able to indulge in one of my absolute favorite culinary weaknesses.

I'm speaking, of course, of sun-dried tomatoes.

Of course, the easiest way to do this is to use the power of the sun. Traditionally, you would place your tomatoes between two simple frames constructed from wood and window screening (to keep pests off of them) and put them in a sunny spot to dry over the course of a few days. But if you live in a humid climate (like I do) then what you'll most likely get is a bunch of moldy tomatoes because the humidity prevents them from drying properly. So I rely on my oven to do the work, and the results are delicious.

Step 1: Get yourself some tomatoes, and some fresh basil doesn't hurt either. These are 'Costoluto Genovese' and 'San Marzano' plums, but any tomato will do.

Step 2: Slice the tomatoes. Plum tomatoes work well sliced in half lengthwise. For the 'Costoluto Genovese,' I sliced them about 1/2 inch thick.

Step 3: Arrange them on a cookie sheet (preferably lined with parchment paper---the tomatoes tend to stick), about 1/2 inch apart. Sprinkle with coarse salt, pepper, and a tiny bit of sugar. If you've got basil (or any other herb you like!) go ahead and sprinkle some of that on, too. Put the tray in the center of a 170 to 200 degree oven. Drying time will take up to twelve hours. Check them regularly. When they look kind of leathery and are no longer exuding any juice, they're done.

Step 4: Remove them from the baking sheet, and let them cool completely on a wire rack. You can put them in a jar with a little olive oil, and keep it in the fridge for up to three weeks. Or you can seal them in any airtight container (don't add olive oil) and store them in the freezer for up to six months.

These dried tomatoes are a delicious treat on pizza, in pasta, or baked into breads. And there's a certain satisfaction in eating tomatoes from your garden on a pizza in the middle of December!

Strawberry Pots

For those gardeners with little space but a hankering for homegrown strawberries, a strawberry pot is the perfect solution. If you're unsure about what a strawberry pot is, they are those urn-shaped pots with a series of small pockets running along the sides. They are generally terracotta, though I've seen them made of glazed pottery as well. You can also find them in a variety of sizes, from very small four-pocket varieties to pots that stand nearly two feet tall and have a plethora of pockets. They can be a bit pricey, but you can often find them on sale in home and garden centers in spring and even on end of season clearance in the fall. Choose a size that matches up with the number of berries you'd like to grow. Keep in mind that a smaller pot will need to be watered much more often than a large one.

There are three types of strawberry plants: June-bearing, ever-bearing, and day-neutral. For a strawberry pot, the best types are the ever-bearing and day-neutral varieties. They will provide you with a regular harvest from late spring until early fall. You'll get higher overall yields from day-neutral varieties.

Planting a strawberry pot is a fairly simple process. Get the pot adequately moist. Terracotta pots will wick all of the water out of your soil unless you moisten them before planting. To do this, simply lay your pot in a tub of water for about an hour. It will soak up water so it won't suck it out of the soil later.Place a piece of window screening or broken flower pot over the drainage hole so the soil doesn't leak out.Fill with soil until you reach the lowest level of pockets. Insert your strawberry plants in these pockets, filling around them with soil. Make sure the crown of the plants is just above soil level.Insert either a one-inch PVC pipe drilled with holes along its length or a cardboard tube from wrapping paper near the center of the pot, but not directly over the drainage hole. You will be using this as a watering pipe to ensure that all of the pockets get adequate moisture.Continue filling to each level of pockets and inserting plants. Stop adding soil when you get to two inches below the rim of the pot. You can add three to four plants in the top of the container, and fill in with soil around them.Water everything in well. Pour water down the tube, on the soil at the top of the pot, and into each pocket (do this slowly so the water doesn't make the soil slosh out.)Place your pot in a spot that gets at least six hours of sun per day.

The type of soil you choose for your strawberry pot should be one that is high in organic matter. Any good, organic potting soil will work. Adding compost, peat, or leaf mold to the mix will make your plants even happier. Also, it's a good idea to mix some blood meal and bone meal into your mix before you plant. These will feed the plant and help them get off to a good start.

Basically, you'll be keeping your plants watered and fed for the remainder of the growing season. Test for moisture by sticking your finger into the potting soil up to your first knuckle. If it is dry, you'll need to water. Strawberries are shallow-rooted plants, and start to slow in fruit production if they are allowed to dry out. Fertilize your plants every other week with a diluted seaweed fertilizer to keep your plants producing. Harvest berries as soon as they are ripe, and remove any rotted fruit or yellowing leaves as you see them.

Strawberries are perennials, and will produce happily for years. If you want to overwinter them in the pot, you'll need to place the entire pot in a sheltered location such as an unheated garage. If you have some ground available to overwinter in, you can dig the plants out of the pot, place them in plastic pots, and bury these pots into the ground with their rims at soil level. Your plants will overwinter beautifully and you can revive them by potting them up with plenty of rich, fresh soil in the spring.

Growing strawberries in a pot is simple and rewarding, and you can do it even if you don't have any yard to speak of.

Decorate, paint, and landscape your way to a more beautiful home.

Storage Container Compost Bin

Maintain your bin.

Every day or so, as you think of it, you can aerate the bin by giving it a quick shake.

If the contents of the bin are staying very wet, or there is an unpleasant odor coming from the bin, you'll need to add some shredded fall leaves, shredded newspaper, or sawdust to the bin. These will dry it out and help restore the ratio of greens to browns that makes compost happen more quickly.

If the contents are very dry, use a spray bottle to moisten the contents, or add plenty of moisture-rich items such as fruits or veggies that are past their prime.

Steps to an Organic Lawn

Organic lawn care is much simpler than it seems. We've grown so used to the idea that a green, attractive lawn is attainable only through the use of synthetic fertilizers, herbicides, and insecticides. The fact of the matter is that a healthy organic lawn will naturally withstand weed and insect invasions. All but the toughest weeds are nothing against a thick, strong, deep-rooted lawn. These five steps will result in a healthy, beautiful organic lawn.

Lawns are a bit picky about their pH level and nutrient requirements. The only way to accurately measure these factors is to get your soil tested professionally. For example, lawn grasses need a pH of between six and seven to thrive. You can add either lime or sulfur to your lawn, depending on the results you get, and your lawn will grow much better. The nutrient requirements for lawns are also rather specific: too much of certain types of nutrients will benefit weeds at the cost of lawn health. A professional soil test, performed by a facility such as your local county cooperative extension service, will accurately measure soil pH and chemical composition and supply you with recommendations for how to improve your soil based on their findings.

Adding amendments and additives without getting a soil test first is not only a waste of money, but can also potentially result in a less healthy lawn than the one you started with.

Regardless of what your soil test finds, every single lawn can benefit from a semiannual topdressing of compost. It will add trace minerals and some nutrition to your soil, which is always a good thing. Even more importantly, compost introduces beneficial microbes into the soil, which results in healthier soil that has better water retention rates. Also, earthworms love compost, and will tunnel through your soil to get to it, aerating your soil, adding fertility, and increasing worm populations.

So, how much should you add? A one-quarter inch layer of compost, raked evenly over your lawn, will accomplish all of these tasks without overwhelming your lawn. An easy way to figure out how much compost you'll need is to remember that for each 100 square feet of lawn area, you'll need one cubic foot (or .05 cubic yards) of compost. Simply measure your lawn area (total square footage = lawn length multiplied by lawn width) and divide by 100. Then, multiply that number by 1 (for cubic feet) or .05 (for cubic yards) and you'll know how much compost you'll need.

Mowing high, which is mowing at 2.5 to three inches tall, does several important things. First off, taller grass shades the soil, which helps prevent weed seeds from germinating. It also helps keep the soil moist and cool, so the lawn will require less water. Finally, mowing your grass high will increase its ability to photosynthesize. Each blade of grass soaks up the sunlight and converts that energy into food. The longer the blades of grass are, the more surface area there is to absorb sunlight.

Another beneficial mowing practice is to use a mulching mower, and leave your grass clippings right on the lawn. The clippings will shade and cool the soil while they decompose, and will give your lawn frequent, low doses of nitrogen at the same time.

People waste more water on lawns than anywhere else in the household. The fact of the matter is that lawn grasses need approximately one inch of water per week during the growing season. If it doesn't come from rain, then you'll need to supplement with a sprinkler. Lawns should dry out between waterings. The reason for this is twofold: first, a lawn that is watered frequently and never allowed to dry out only develops roots in the top inch or two of soil. These lawns are especially susceptible to droughts. The second reason is that while lawn grasses grow best when their roots extend deep into the soil, the vast majority of weeds are shallow-rooted. So, by watering frequently and not allowing the soil to dry out, you're actually encouraging weeds.

The best way to ensure that your lawn is getting the proper amount of water is to place a rain gage on your lawn while you're watering. Another good alternative is to place a cup or can out to catch the water, and then measure how deep it is every ten minutes or so until you reach one inch.

A note on watering: water early in the morning so your grass has a chance to dry out before evening. A damp lawn can lead to fungal issues, and that's something we definitely don't want to have to deal with.

Weeds are not the end of the world. No one wants a lawn that is more dandelions than turf grass, but a bit of white clover here and there isn't going to hurt anything, and can even be beneficial. Clover captures nitrogen from the air and releases it through its roots into your soil. In addition, it is a source of food for beneficial insects such as honeybees.

That said, there are several good, organic ways of dealing with weeds in your lawn. The first method is to simply pull or dig out weeds on a regular basis so they don't take over your lawn. This is especially important for weeds like dandelions, which can easily get out of control. The second way is to apply corn gluten meal, which is an organic pre-emergent herbicide, in early spring around when the forsythias bloom. Corn gluten is good at controlling dandelions, crabgrass, and other weeds, but it may take a couple of years of use before the corn gluten gets the situation under control. Another great method is to leave your fallen autumn leaves on the lawn, and simply run over them a few times with the lawnmower. A recent study by Michigan State University demonstrated that chopped leaves (especially maple leaves) left on the lawn and allowed to break down naturally prevented dandelions from germinating the following year.

Organic lawn care isn't hard, and, as you can see, it's not expensive either. By paying attention and changing a few longstanding lawn care habits, a beautiful organic lawn is within every home owner's reach.