Putting in my new garden - Part 3

The garden walls are up!!!! Now what to put in the middle?????????

Originally, I had thought I'd need to order a load of top soil and fertilize the h3ll out of it.

Once I started researching I then thought I'd go down the road that Mel had done in Square Foot Gardening....a mix of peat, compost, and vermiculite.  Then I tried to find vermiculite.  I found it.  But darn was it expensive.  Ordering online would have been $24 for 4 cubic feet....and I needed 7 times that......$168!!!!! ....Not including shipping. I found some relatively locally, calculated that I would have to drive a half-hour each way.....AND pay a total of $150 dollars just for the vermiculite.

I was a bit stymied because it had sounded like such a great and easy solution....but for me it was unaffordable and inconvenient

I kept researching other types of options.  I loved the ease of what SFG offered, but not the price.  My head was spinning with all the different information that was out there.  Then came the class at my local arboretum.  They talked about a lasagna garden....layers of "stuff" right on top of your existing yard to get good growing results.  It was the same ease as SFG, but had many more choices for the lasagna "filling."

This image is the same one that was used during the presentation

I questioned WHY the hay???? WHY the straw?????  WHAT type of fertilizer?????

The hay is basically straw with seed.  It is more nutrient rich.  As it decomposes, it releases a ton of good things for the garden to use.

The straw is to help keep moisture in.

The fertilizer could be almost anything....chemical fertilizer if you don't want an organic garden, peat moss if you do, etc.

What I finally decided to do was fairly simple. Cardboard, hay, leaf mulch, and straw.  Because the leaf mulch is so nutrient rich, I skipped the fertilizer.  I may add some next year and I will also have my bokashi composting to add.  But this year, I'm thinking I might be good.

The next step....gathering it all and putting it where it goes!!!!!