My new task at hand was to create a veggie garden at my house.  While I have access to a huge garden at my parent's it is just nice to think that I could successfully grow things on my own here....

I decided to make a raised bed lasagna-style garden....  I first heard of this style in No Greater Joy's magazine in an article written by Debi Pearl.  I then got the Lasagna gardening books from the local library and poured over them for a couple of weeks... it seemed easy enough....  Basically the premise of this style is to build a garden in layers that self-compost.  You use mostly stuff that you have on hand (or at least that I already had) to build a raised bed with great soil....

We started with 2 small plots... 6ft by 5ft each, and removed the sod from the yard.  We chose the area because it is one of the few areas in our back yard that has sun all day long.   The neighbor's fence behind it is on the north.

I took up the bermuda sod and moved it to another place where it didn't look as good and then put down a layer of newspaper to block any potential weeds.  I don't think that weeds were likely to come from the clay below, but the book recommended it so I did it. 

The important thing is to wet down each layer well as you build it, so I kept the hose handy.  

I also bought several bags of compost blends from Walmart... Technically you should use peat moss, but due to the non-sustainability of this (and price) I wanted to make another choice.  Several of the cheapest products ($1-3 for a 40 pound bag) were the compost-humus, compost-manure, and soil amenders with peat moss added.  I picked up about 10 of these for a total of $20.  That with the lumber to make a border was the only cost I had.

After newspaper... I put down some top soil that I had in the back yard.  I then did a layer of grass clippings.  Then a layer of the compost-humus and compost from the compost pile over that.  The compost-manure came next followed by chopped up leaves.  I then put the peat moss soil amender on top with some ashes from the fire pit last.

Ideally the peat-moss and store bought layers would be 2-4 inches deep and the others 4-8 inches deep.  They settle down pretty quickly when watered though.

We started the plot first and then built a frame, but it still seemed to work well.

Today I put in some bunching onions, radishes and mustard greens... I don't know much about square foot gardening, but I'm trying to follow the principles spelled out in this... but we'll see how it all works out in the end....