Lasagna gardening [layered gardening] is a gardening technique that has been used for many years and what better way to introduce it in a challenge.

We've purposely thrown in this challenge for two reasons:

• It's a challenge barometer gauge as to how many families will actively get their other placed raised garden bed up and going and producing.
• It's a challenge that oozes waste minimisation/landfill diversion. Kerbside waste stats inform 40-50% is compostable. This compostable material is best suited for growing healthy vegetables rather than being wasted in landfill with other harmful inorganic stuff.
  Learning how to do this will not only save you money but will aid massively in the production of bigger harvests through better organic compost/soil nutrition.

We recommend:

• reading this link about Lasagna Gardening to get some pointers - click here [opens in another tab]
• networking with family and friends to get a healthy pile of food scraps, lawn clippings, leaves, cardboard and paper to start creating layers just like composting.
• visiting your local petrol stations or cafes to see if you can collect their used coffee grounds.
• adding any sort of manure if you can get it, i.e. sheep, horse, chicken.
• covering your lasagna garden with old carpet, hessian sacks, thick cardboard etc to keep birds and pets out. Also the cover helps keep in any generated heat source and minimises amount of rain drops hitting directly and flushing goodness and nutrient value away. Much in the same way you would put a lid on your compost bin.

Lasagna gardens do take time for content to break down and decompose. Build your lasagna garden a lot higher than your raised garden box to allow for decomposition.
Here is a edited teaser video of Therese and Buffie making a lasagna garden. All families will learn how to make a lasagna garden at our 2 workshops held on Saturday 8th - Sunday 9th July, 2017.

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If we get done for using Olympics in our tile we'll appropriately rename it SWYS - pronounced Swiss. SWYS = Synergy With Your Soil

If you have synergy with your soil it means you understand the benefits of organically enriching your soil, i.e. composting.

When we offer a compost workshop [in first working bee with Therese Mangos] our best advice is to start composting straight away. Autumn has come very late for we're still waiting for many trees in our area to start dropping leaves. Take advantage of sourcing cardboard, coffee, green and brown organic material, untreated ash, manures [horse, cow, sheep, chicken], and food scraps to beef up your compost bins intake.

What is grown in Soil Olympics period benefit your progress and skills well in My Garden Salad Challenge.

Soil Olympics Challenge.
In the Spring/Summer period leading up to MCEJ we want to find who will grow the biggest:

• pumpkin
• tomato
• kumi kumi
• cucumber
• apple cucumber
• bean
• potato
• kumara
• broccoli
• water melon
• rock melon... to name a few - there will be more challenges!

We will post more details for this challenge just before Spring 2017.

This challenge will run in mid/late March 2018 so there will be plenty of time to have your gardens pumping with salad vegetables. This challenge will finish our first year together ☺
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'know what you grow'