May Day Lasagne Party

The hands, minds and muscle of GTUF came to the rescue on Sunday, celebrating a rare spring-like day of sunshine and offering some labour for Labour Day. They arrived ready to transform cardboard, newspaper, straw, llama manure, grass clippings, seaweed and leaf mulch into garden beds which will yield fruit for passing pedestrians.

We started with the boulevard. First you use your lawn edger to score a trench around the edge of the bed.



Line the trench with newspaper: hose it down.



Then apply the cardboard, which keeps the weeds from rising up through the soil. Hose that down too.



Line the trench with straw, and then cover the cardboard with llama manure.



Top with more straw



and whatever else is on hand: grass cuttings, seaweed, leaf mulch.



Plant raspberries, plants dipped in a little EM, watered in well, and bedded in enriched soil:



Time to move up a level to the corner of the lawn. Edges dug, lined with newspaper.



More cardboard on top of the newspaper.



Straw and manure, followed by grass clippings and seaweed and leaf mulch...



and all ready for rhubarb.



Preparing the planting hole for rhubarb, which roots deeply: cut an X in the cardboard to allow the roots to penetrate



place the plant and water really, really well (fill the hole with water)



and then surround with a nice blanket of good soil.



Moved along the wall to make another bed, for strawberries.



Cardboard, straw, llama manure..



..water well to prepare for planting.



Strawberries all planted. Shallow rooted, so they don't need to be bedded in like the rhubarb.



Water them in.



The long view: three beds in just under three hours. Thank you all!



Everyone happy... with the possible exception of some ground-dwelling bees who may have been displaced in the process.