Lasagna Gardening and other Tales

Happy St. Patricks Day.  I'm really not sure why we celebrate this day, I just know that in college it meant we went out to drink green beer.  I do enjoy the tradition of corned beef and cabbage, and I cooked mine Sunday night.  This morning we had hash with our eggs for breakfast.  Yum.

Friday was an incredibly beautiful day, with temps at 68 degrees.  The record in our neck of the woods is 70, so we almost made it.  I took advantage and started working on the vegetable garden.  We first formed this garden when I moved in with Terry two years ago.  The soil was in great condition, but the weeds had won the battle.  We spent hours on our hands and knees, pulling out every last root of every last weed.  Friday when I started work by raking out the straw, there were 3 weeds.  Three.  So, I am going to tell you about how we do our lasagna gardens.

 You start with a bed with good soil and no signs of weeds.

 Next, you cover the soil with either cardboard or wet newspaper.  I chose to use newspaper on this garden since I had lettuce and cabbage starts that I wanted to plant right away.

 A simple poke with the trowel makes for a hole to place your starts in to.  Then, you cover it all with either straw or mulch.  I need to take a trip to the farm and garden store to get some straw, since I like it best.
This method cuts way down on your weeds, and more importantly, conserves moisture.  With the mild winter we have had, and no snow in the mountains, I suspect we are going to have a dry summer with water restrictions.

 This is the garden in the front yard that we finished that same morning.  I want to start growing  more vegetables out front, so I lifted all of the perennials and replanted them elsewhere.  Then I raked the soil level before laying down cardboard.  We save cardboard all year, since our goal is to have all of our beds lasagna style.  It's a little hard to see, but I set up the bedsprings as a trellis for the sweet peas I planted.

 On Saturday, I joined my son, brother, and sister in law in taking the ferry to Bainbridge Island for a Memorial service celebrating the life of my Uncle Norman.

 Here I am with my son, Michael.

Uncle Norm was quite the man.  He was loved by everyone.  He never seemed to lose his temper.  

As my cousin, his daughter said, he didn't even get mad when she crashed the car into the mailbox.  Or when she drove it into the ditch, or when she crashed it. . . . .

I know as a child, he would delight me by talking like Donald Duck.  His passing gave the family the opportunity to gather and share stories and pictures and be embraced by the love.  He would have loved the party we held in his honor.

We arrived early for the service, so stopped at a Starbucks for some coffee.  One of my cousin's sons was there with his family, and he told me he had something for me.  He presented me with a bag full of booklets that my Mom had given him years ago when he was writing a report for school on the history of aviation.  I was totally amazed when I got home and looked them over.  This is just a sampling.  They were all published in 1943.  I guess I should explain that my Dad was a Marine, and a Naval Aviator.  He flew a SBD dive bomber.

Now, we need to have a family meeting to decide what to do with these.  Terry wants to scan the covers for the artwork.  Maybe they will end up in a Flight Museum.  We shall see.