Cardboard Garden (a.k.a. lasagna garden)

Note: This post was written a couple of years before I moved to my current location (and when I was still married, hence the "we" when my new posts are all "I").  I had wanted to start a blog back then but never got around to it.  But since it’s already written …

We moved up to the farm on a slightly more permanent basis (still keeping an apartment in Ottawa as well) in June 2011.  We were left with dozens of cardboard moving boxes which normally would have been recycled … if it weren’t for the fact that we wanted more garden space!  We weren’t too worried about a new garden right away, as we had enough to do that year just getting settled in, so we planned it for the following spring.  I laid down boxes throughout the summer in the area where we wanted the new garden to be dug, to stunt the growth of the grass underneath (anyone who has dug a new area, with or without the use of a rototiller, will know the difficulty in digging into grass roots).

During the fall,  I soaked down small areas at a time, threw down a layer of mulch (in this case, we had been given a great big load from the Hydro One guys after they were clearing trees from the lines – who knew you could get free mulch?  A neighbor who knew the deal hooked us up with one of the drivers), then I shoveled topsoil and some manure onto it.

 Here is the end result before the snow started falling …

 So then the snow fell and months later, a glorious March arrived.  We had a very early hot spell this spring, and we had a good chance to check out the cardboard garden situation.  Super awesome!!