Glen Fork Garden Build Day
On Martin Luther King Day, Monday January 16, 2012, Groundwork Wyoming County will be building a Garden at Glen Fork Consolidated School.
On this day, we will begin the initial ground preparation of the garden. This will involve lots of shoveling and getting dirty. It will be a great opportunity for students to learn about gardening and it will be lots of fun. We will begin planting fruits and vegetables later in the year.
The style of garden being built is a lasagna garden. It is not called this because of what will be grown in the garden, but because it utilizes alternating layers of high nitrogen and high carbon organic matter to add fertility to the soil. To prepare this garden, a thin layer of cardboard is placed on top of the grass. This kills all the plants below and prevents them from making it up through the next layers. On top of that a goes a layer of high carbon organic material, then a layer of high nitrogen organic material, and a final layer of high carbon material.
In the end, over a foot of material will be added to the soil. Over the next few months, until planting season, all of this material gradually breaks down to provide an excellent highly fertile planting area.
Because this technique utilizes no tilling the soil beneath all the additional organic material is preserved.The addition of all this nutrient high material attracts earthworms and beneficial micro-organisms, which break down the original dirt below and increase the availability of these nutrients. Because the majority of this material is recycled, this gardening style diverts something that would otherwise be sent to a landfill.
For more information on lasagna gardening see http://www.plantingseedsblog.com/2009/10/how-to-plant-a-lasagna-garden/.
To obtain a permission slip for this event click here: MLKPermision Slip
To see a flyer for this event click here: MLKdayFlyer