Garden Day 001 Part Two

Compost Soil on our Shoulders

We bought 11 bags of garden soil (40 Liter each) and one giant bag of cut hay ground cover.

“How am I going to bring these heavy bags from the parking lot to our garden plot!?” was my question. Well, we carried them one by one on our shoulders to the plot. They were heavy but we managed without any major injury, fall or disaster. It was an incidental exercise number one of the day.

Getting Garden Boxes Ready

First, I uprooted all weeds from the garden boxes.

“No-Till” Farming Method, aka Lasagna Method

Then, spread out two sheets of old newspapers. Wet them with water.

As for the next two ingredients of the lasagna recipe, I simply layered organic compost soil on the wet newspapers, as the expert at the garden center told me that they did not sell either dried chopped leaves nor fresh cut grass, and that compost soils they sell are essentially the finished products of the recipe.

Dragging a heavy bag of compost soil and emptying it in a garden box was an incidental exercise number two of the day.

Purple Lettuce Seeds

Since this is the first season for growing anything at this plot, I decided to keep it simple and easy. One of the vegetables I chose to plant was purple lettuces. They look pretty on plates and super easy to prepare: wash, chop and serve.

Using a hand trowel, I marked the soil with lines where seeds will be dropped.

I dropped a few seeds in the shallow dented lines on the soil surface.

Finishing Touch

Then, I covered the unseeded area with the chopped hay to prevent weeds from growing and moisture from evaporating.

Last but not least, I watered the garden box to encourage germination.

When will we see seedlings pop out of the soil?

And I hope bugs won’t eat young tender leaves!