Grass clippings are great unless you have used a weed-n-feed fertilizer, if you use your own and there is no chemical then that should be the best... another good thing is compost, you save all your kitchen scraps ( exclude meat or anything animals would come for ) in a little pail under the sink, tea bags, coffee grounds, egg shells, potato peels, orange peels etc. If you have fruit trees and drops, pile them up and throw some dirt on them, it makes excellent compost. sally

I've been experimenting with lasagna gardens this year and have some success...and some almost failures. The tomatoes are huge..but mostly greenery and the fruit is wrinkled so I guess I should have watered more even though the lasagna stayed moist. Picked the first ripe ones yesterday. The acorn squash have taken over the bed and are climbing the fence now and are setting squash. I planted a row of corn in a brand new lasagna bed and it is doing well. It was nothing but grass clippings and shredded paper with a small amount of compost. I thought it would get a foot high and then keel over. Not so, it just keeps growing and even though I planted late, is starting to tassle. Another last minute bed is woodchips and grass clippings (obviously the grass is growing this cool summer) with only enough compost to plant seeds in. Last week, I seeded this one with parsnip seeds and last night it looked like every one had germinated! This in my experience is very unusual. They usually take ages to germinate and then are spotty. There are so many coming up I thought they were weeds! Meanwhile the beans are producing well and one of the best veggies this year has been the peas. With all of the cool weather they are still producing. It's been quite fun trying this type of gardening.

I was afraid you were going to ask me that! :) But seriously, one of the things I've learned is that I know absolutely nothing about soil biology, so I don't think I could begin to explain what Dan spends hours describing in the workshops. What I *can* tell you is what Ive observed in my own garden this season and a few things IÂve learned. First this is a garden I started 5 years ago. I did soil tests, made the recommended amendments and regularly added compost (high-end, organic-certified stuff). But my garden has been declining every year and last year, things simply didnÂt grow - and it wasnÂt just the weather. I broadcast a mineral mix recommended by Dan last fall, but it takes a few years for the soil to get back in balance and function so that plants can take up what they need (he describes in detail how you can measure and monitor all this). In the meantime there are drenches and sprays you can use (all organic-certified, mostly minerals and innoculants, and inexpensive) to help the plants if the soil isnÂt great (as mine is definitely not). This spring I decided to apply the drenches and sprays to only half of each planting to see what the effects would be. It was shocking. In most cases the plants were about 30% bigger and much healthier - deep green and very thick leaves (esp on tomatoes). I started treating everything after about 6-8 weeks. I tried growing 3 artichoke plants for the first time this year. The one I didnÂt treat is dead. It just died about two weeks ago; I have no idea why. The stem weakened and it fell over. At first I thought voles had gotten the roots, but that wasnÂt it. The one at the other end of the bed that got the most treatment is big and healthy with 3 artichokes on it. The tomatoes I didnÂt treat early were much smaller and were the first to show signs of early blight (which IÂve had almost every year). Just yesterday I realized that all the tomatoes are barely showing signs of blight and normally it would be a third of the way up the plant by now. Could be the dry weather . . . One of the goals of "nutrient dense" production is to create "high brix" plants and one reason is that they are supposed to be less appealing to bugs. IÂve had one tomato hornworm and it was on one of the untreated tomato plants. And this is the first year I have not seen any squash bugs (at least not yet) on my zucchini. I did have Colorado Potato Beetles on the potatoes, but very limited and easily controlled compared to previous years. And now that I think of it, I havenÂt even seen a cucumber beetle. Maybe the hot, dry weather has affected the bugs too, but IÂm very happy with the direction things have taken and with how much better my garden has done this year. IÂm just at the beginning of the learning curve about all this. One of the things I really appreciate about DanÂs approach is that itÂs all based on science, measurement, and testing. HeÂs working with farmers to to tissue analysis of plants during the growing season to test just how much they can do "in real time" to influence growing conditions. And heÂs trying to get experts together to create a definition of "nutrient dense" since itÂs fairly meaningless the way itÂs used these days. We all know that blueberries are a "nutrient dense" food. But Dan wants to know why blueberry A has more nutrients that blueberry B, and to set up systems to grow more As and to improve them. Most of our agriculture has been focused solely on yield for decades, so itÂs exciting to see this emphasis on nutrition and flavor, and IÂm very much enjoying playing around with it in my own garden. I also really liked that the workshops were spread throughout the year. It means you get a lot of support and plenty of time to get questions answered and to think up new ones! I hope this has helped to answer your question; it is by far my longest GardenWeb post! I think you can email me privately if youÂd like (or anyone else who has questions). IÂm afraid I might be taking up too much space here. :)

We have two major gardens--the spring garden and the fall. Fall is more productive for us (fewer bugs and more rain). Right now we have in garlic, onions, lettuce, broccoli, spinach, corn salad, rocket and carrots. Our fall carrots don't get very large, but they sure are sweet! Since we now have more space, we are experimenting with a seasonal garden (smaller) for in-and-out crops, a larger garden for the long season plants like tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, etc. and a dedicated garden for onions and garlic. We also have an asparagus patch to be planted this coming February. Thanks to a wonderful neighbor down the road who has a tractor and tiller, we aren't breaking our backs digging and tilling!