By Claire Hubbard

My father, Papa John, as he was fondly called by his family, took great pride in his vegetable garden toward the later years of his life. My grandmother was an avid gardener working mostly with flowers. Now, I am not sure which of the family lines my gardening-genes came from, but I began to really enjoy my yard and flower garden ten years or so ago. If anything is blooming, it finds its way into my house to a vase for just me and my husband to enjoy, or for friends and family who might come over for a visit to enjoy. The truth is, I love color and fresh flowers in my home all year around if possible. I have been known on occasion to buy a bouquet at the grocery store if I can’t come up with anything out of my garden.

We moved to a small patio home with a very small garden area four years ago. My husband joked that I brought as many plants as we had pieces of furniture from our home in South Carolina to Alabama. First, we added truckloads of good soil to the garden and planted it with things I had rooted or dug up from our previous home, as well as adding some new plants.

Since we moved to Montgomery and established our beds in the front of the house and in the patio garden on the side of the house, I began to look at “lasagna gardening”. It interested me for several reasons. For starters we did not have to dill up the ground. We just chose an area for the garden, laid cinder blocks and began building layers – I am sure that is how it got its’ name!

We chose an area across the alley behind our house in a spot that receives plenty of sunlight. We enclosed the garden area with cinder blocks. The first layer we put down was cardboard (you can use layers of newspaper). This is to keep the weeds out. Then we put layers of “brown” (carbon) alternately with “green” (nitrogen). The “brown” could be black and white shredded newspaper, shredded brown paper bags, peat moss, pine needles or pine bark, or leaves. The green can be lawn clippings, vegetable and fruit scrapes, cuttings, coffee grounds, and eggshells (crushed). The we topped it off with three to four inches of peat moss, moo-nure (manure), and garden soil.

We watered heavily between each layer.

I planted zinnias, daffodils, hyacinths, lilies, tulips, and gladiolas in my cut-flower bed. I also planted marigolds in the holes of the cinder blocks. The flower garden did so well last year that we have made another raised bed this year (for vegetables) with the same lasagna layering technique to build up the soil. The bed is situated east – west and the taller vegies will be planted on the north side, so they don’t cast a shadow on the shorter vegies. This season I will try my hand at growing vegetables.

Claire Hubbard, an intern in the 2016 Master Gardener Class, lives in Montgomery, AL. For more information on becoming a master gardener, visit www.capcitymga.org or email capcitymga@gmail.com.