Year One

by Ray
(Park Forest, IL)

I read some books at the library on gardening. I finally get to have a garden and wanted to get some pointers. One book I read was about mulching. The auther sugests that we need not dig up the earth to plant a garden. Being that I don't much care for pulling weeds,I decided to try her way.

I went to the library and asked them for the old newspapers they put out for trash. Black and white only, no color. I think there are metals in the color that I don't want to eat.

After laying down 5 layers of paper in the area I wanted to plant I watered the paper. Next after running over a collection of leaves saved from the year before with the mowed, I layered up to 4 inches thick of the leaves on top of the paper. Then I watered it again.

I am using rain water that I collected.

When planting time came I just scooped back the leaves with my hand to make a place to put the plant. Next I laid down another layer of leaves.

In the end I got a lot of tomatoes, peppers, carrots, beets, herbs like basil, mint, cilantro, parsley. I have been working a compost pile all last year and through the winter. This will go down first before the paper this year.

This year the garden will be twice as big and the best thing is NO WEEDS to pull.