Spring

With Mike and Emma off in Texas and spring cleaning finished I am heading out today, Saturday, to WarEagle's Nest Ranch to prepare the next "layer" of our shared lasagne garden. Last Spring (2009) I started this experiment on the vegetable garden he has "given" over to me to work.

The concept of the lasagne garden is simple and brilliant in its simplicity. The old farmer gardening method is one of extreme sweat from May through Oct; this newer concept is easy and enjoyable. When I began tending this patch of earth in 2007 I used the old farmer method-- rototilling in April, adding sheep and peat to it, creasing the furrows, planting by May 15th, weeding incessantly all summer, losing the battle with the weeds by August, and in late October harvesting any vegetables, leaving the dying plants (along with weeds filled with seeds) in the ground to be mulched in the Spring, only to see the cycle repeat itself. The key is to cut the weed/seeding part of the cycle.

Now I do the following: rake up any seed pods from an enormous, nearby, locust tree (genera Gleditsia), lay down a layer of sheep and peat, a layer of straw, a layer of newspaper, a layer of mushroom mulch to hold down the paper, water thoroughly, plant by May 15th, add grass clippings all summer long, and enjoy looking at the prosperous plants. NO WEEDING. (Maybe one or two tiny weeds.) You can add organic material other than just grass clippings. Kitchen organics, grass clippings, etc are added during the Spring and Summer. In the Fall you harvest; and in the Winter you just let it alone. No special prepping. In the Spring you begin the layering again.

Each year, as you repeat this process, you will find that these layers melt into the earth beneath and eventually you will have created the most luxuriant black-crumbley-soiled, water-retaining, weed free, growing area that is a joy, not a chore. Earthworms will travel miles to find you. Weeds can't get a foot-hold. This works for flower beds, too. You can build a lasagne garden over areas of an existing lawn-- and you know how overpowering grass can be at finding its way up through weedmatting. It works really well with its simplicity. Who-da-thunk?

Now for those pesky rabbits.....

Books

Yesterday I received a mailer from my sister, Robyn, who lives on the Hood Canal in WA with her husband, Larry. Robyn has shared wonderful books with me over the many years of our adulthood as friends and sisters: No.1 Ladies Detective Agency series; Isabel Dalhousie series; Portuguese Irregular Verb series and 44 Scotland Street series (can you see a trend here? yes, I have become an Alexander McCall Smith fan. He's a Scot who spent much time in Botswana and who writes the intricacies of the human soul with an unparalleled depth of understanding and a delicate hand. http://randomhouse.com/feature/mccallsmith/main.php ); all of Elizabeth George's Inspector Lynley series; Connie Willis; Douglas Adams; Mark Levin's books-- Men in Black, Liberty and Tyranny, Rescuing Sprite; and many more. The list spans 30 years of reading and sharing-- a list too long to recite here. As I dig about in the many boxes of books in our garage I will add to this list with the hope of sharing some great books with anyone reading this blog.

The mailer contained Maisie Dobbs series by Jacqueline Winspear. We shall see.

Poems

Thermopylae

Honour to those who in the life they lead
define and guard a Thermopylae.
Never betraying what is right,
consistent and just in all they do,
but showing pity also, and compassion;
generous when they're rich, and when they're poor,
still generous in small ways,
still helping as much as they can;
always speaking the truth,
yet without hating those who lie.

And even more honour is due to them
when they foresee (as many do foresee)
that Ephialtis will turn up in the end,
that the Medes will break through after all.

Constantine P. Cavafy (Kavafis)