I just moved from Virginia to Iowa, where I am originally from, and want to start a garden. When I lived in Virginia I had a small yard and small garden, only about 25' x 5' in size. I planted tomatoes, peppers, onions, cucumbers, carrots and some herbs too. Now that I am in Iowa, I have a lot bigger yard, almost an acre, and want to start a garden. The yard gets good sunlight all day long so that is good, but I wanted to run my idea of how to start the garden by you all to work out any issues or improve the design. So, since I know how much work a garden can be, and larger garden means more work, I understand what it will take. I'd like to create a garden in two sections both side by side, with a kind of walk way in between them. They will be about 30' x 8' each, with about 4' in between. That way I can reach into the center of them from any side and not have to walk all over the garden in the plants. That way when I need to I can also set a sprinkler in the middle and water when we aren't getting enough rain. Does that make sense, or should I do something different?

As far as how I plan on starting the garden, this is my plan. Since I moved, I have lots of paper from all the boxes the moving company used to stuff the boxes. It seems similar to newspaper material, so I was going to use it to put over the grass to kill it by putting down 4-5 layers and then covering that with compost I get from the local landfill. They say it's certified by the US Compost Council, so I assume that is good compost. Plus it's free for up to one ton. I plan on scalping the grass that is within the garden border, place the paper down, wet it, and then cover it with compost to about 3-4 inches. After a while, about the start of September I was planning on turning it all with a tiller so that I could plant some fall vegetables, or a cover crop. Do you think the paper will be broken down by then? And is that a sound plan?

Lastly, to use as a border, I'm able to get cut limestone blocks 3-4" x 8" running from 1-3' long as a border. They will cost a little more than buying landscaping timbers, so I thought that would be more permanent, and look nicer. Is this a good idea to use limestone blocks?

Thanks for the help, I'm really looking forward to next spring so I can start stuff from seed and get a really good garden going!

Andrew