Documenting the Atrocity

No, I'm not talking about the Sunday morning bobbleheads.

I am referring to this atrocity.

Work in earnest began this weekend on our backyard. Because the gods have given us a heavy, rocky  clay medium, our plan is to dig up just a single bed so that we can use what we unearth to regrade our slope of a backyard into something ...a little less slope-y.

We'll be employing a modified version of the lasagna baking method for the dug bed. For the rest of the garden, which will be built in raised beds, we'll use of combination of lasagna and good, old-fashioned topsoil.

I've finally found a use for the local crime blotter/ad rag!

Our modified garden lasagna recipe includes:

• 6 layers of newsprint
• a generous sprinkling of water
• 3 inches of peat moss
• a week's worth of kitchen scraps
• 2 inches of manure
• 2 inches of leaf compost
• 3 inches of shredded cedar mulch
• a generous sprinkling of water

After spending hours of back-breaking digging in the hot sun, we layered the ingredients above in the order in which they appear. In a week or so, we'll turn the bed and water again.

We'll repeat layering the entire list of ingredients, substituting mulched leaves, dead plants, pine needles, crab apples, etc. as the materials present themselves, throughout Summer and Fall.

By the time spring comes around, we should have built up a fertile medium in which to grow flowers and veggies. And I'm told that in addition to keeping the weeds down, the layers of newsprint will eventually break-down as part of the compost.

In the meantime, I need to come up with a quicker strategy of getting some of the other beds ready for a November planting of roses, grapes and blueberries. Also, while I think the soil-less beds will work very well for flowers, veggies and whatnot, I think bushes and shrubs require soil. Do they not?

Comments

[bryant]

My sick childhood being what it was, I never saw the Waltons. But, I bet this is what it was like. Sugoi! The "lasagna" method? I'm impressed...I think...er...where's the bar?

[Roxanne]

We're keeping the bar upstairs on the deck.

[bryant]

Whew...thought you were going to say you quit drinking to concentrate on your gardening ;-)

[carla]

I'm not sure what you mean by "soil-less beds"...

But for roses, you'll definitely need to build up a healthy, well drained soil. Roses don't like to get their feet wet.

[Roxanne]

soil-less = stuff other than dirt.

[Roxanne]

As for gardening vs. drinking, I intend to grow fruit and/or potatoes, so I can make my own hootch.

[eRobin]

Good lord, woman. Nobody has ever put a yard to better use than you. I'm am in awe.

[Roxanne]

Yeah, it's just a tiny little yard. And come peak oil, you'll all be begging me for food.

/snark.

[greensmile]

just make sure you read all those "newspapers" first. The color pages on the ad inserts use glossier clay-filled paper sometimes. The black ink on plain news print is often as not soy based ink and readily broken down paper. The glossier and the more colorful, the greater chance of nasty compounds in the ink.

The printer's job used to be a jungle of toxic fumes but color inks even after EPA regulation, bear scrutiny:

A typical color ink typically uses organic pigments that are synthetic materials that are formed under specific conditions to produce the desired characteristics of color and crystal size. The typical pigments are: (1) Phthalocyanine blue for cyan; (2) Lithol Rubine for magenta; and (3) Dairylide yellow for yellow. These pigments are supplied in the form of heavy concentrated bases or “Flushes”. Resins used for colors tend to be much cleaner in color than those used for black inks, so that the printed color can reflect its truer color. The oils used by the newspaper industry today are from the vegetable family. The industry found that soy bean oil type formulations produced a better product for this application.

These ink raw material components are then proportionally measured into formulas. When formulating quality newspaper inks, it is not only important to have the proper ingredients, but also the proper manufacturing and quality control techniques. When these parameters are optimized, the quality inks developed in the laboratory can be made on a much larger scale in production.

Although there “appears” to be no direct correlation with newsprint ink to the term “PCE”, there is a problem with the ink manufacturers’ failure to use those quality control measures regarding the use of Trichloroethane, a component of specific inks (Exhibit 2),

[julia]

OMG, the lasagna gardening lady runs a gift shop in the town my mom lives in.

Also: dryer lint holds an insane amount of water.