garden photos

The two neighbor kids and I threw together this 'lasagna compost' (covered with straw, at right), at the end of April. We layered cardboard, newspaper, straw, and food scraps, and wet it down when we were finished. In just over a month it got no attention at all, except for being watered two or three more times. The space to the left is the way all the soil on the site looked, originally. Here I've dug down a couple inches (the most that's possible in this clay and rock) to move the compost over and start again.

I only meant to try and do the job right this time. But when I moved the first effort, this is what I found underneath:

Beautiful, dark earth that could be dug about 8 inches deep. Well-hydrated and ready for the tomatoes and jalapenos that will need a home soon. They're in the little greenhouse right now. You can see it at the back of the photo.

As soon as I saw this success, I started two more sections of compost. By the time they're ready in a few weeks, we should have enough plants to fill them all. At that point we'll be using about 50% of the site. I thought we'd be lucky to make use of 20%. Thanks again to Raven for the idea. I really didn't believe it'd work til I saw the proof.