Frogsong Studio Blog

Okay so here’s an update on the lasagna gardening. As I explained earlier, Lasagna Gardening is using layers of anything that can be composted in a raised bed to create the planting medium. 

We made the first one together. Hence, I was there to supervise. Then Ken made two more, however, I didn’t supervise the job which was a mistake. So what did he do? Well, in the first one he threw a bunch of trash consisting of paper, cardboard, etc on the bottom, threw a huge thick layer of chicken poop in on top of it, then covered it all up with store bought soil. Ummmm, NOT!

On the second one, he layed a layer of trash and cardboard in the bottom, then  dug up some dirt in a spot where we plan to build another koi pond and threw that in there with a few shovels full of bagged compost, spotty at best, mixed in, no! There’s a reason we don’t plant in the ground we have. When it’s wet, it’s mud and when it dries it’s like cement. Nothing grows well in it but weeds.

So what did I do? Well I planted in it because I didn’t know what he did. In the first one, everything I planted in it died and that’s how I found about about the huge layer of chicken poop he put in it in an effort to fill it up.

In the second one, the top dried so hard that it cracked and when I watered it the water just ran off the sides.  So I had the lovely job of having to “unplant” everything and redo the beds. That’s what I’ve been doing this week and I have one finished and everything replanted in it, and another about halfway finished.

He said he just didn’t want to have to buy more dirt. I’ve been telling him from the beginning that we didn’t need to buy ANY dirt.  I’ve tried to explain to him the purpose of all the trash we’re putting in the garden and how it works to no avail. I told him, we could grow our garden in nothing BUT paper and trash if we wanted to. He shook his head like I was crazy and didn’t have a clue what I was talking about,  so now I have to make a special one with nothing but trash and paper just to prove him wrong. Ha!

If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself. Or at least make sure you’re there to supervise and give them plenty of reason to say all you do is bitch.