You Grow Girl™

Joined: 31 Jul 2009 Posts: 1

I'll try to keep this short...I've been lurking on here for several months now, and I have a rough idea in mind about what needs to be done...just need some experts to help me smooth down the rough edges!

I live in central Missouri. The former owners of our house (roomie is actually buying it...biut it's still 'our') had built a large (1,200 square feet) raised garden plot in the backyard. According to a neighbor, they had put a lot of work into it and always had a wonderful garden. My roomie and I planned to use the space...and then life got in the way. Fast forward a few years...garden area is covered in grass....we fence it in and plan to till....can't find a usable tiller...so it doesn't happen and the grass/weeds are allowed to grow REALLY high...our own ecosystem. Today, we went and hacked downn all the grass/weeds and everything...

1) I plan to use the 'lasagna' method over the fall/winter months. I am wondering if we need to rake up all of the grass and weeds and put them back on top of the newspaper layer, or can we simply spread it out over the short grass and smother them that way?

2) Railroad ties are currently used to 'edge' the raised bed. We are planning to replace them with some type of stone soon. I don't know what/if they were treated with the nasty stuff that has creotate in it. Is there a way to find out? I plan to get the soil tested this fall...is that something they can test for? *shudder* What if it's been contaminated!? Sad

3) Speaking of soil testing, when I get the results, I can 'custom' blend the layers of my lasagna to add what it needs, is this correct? And hopefully this also means that no store bought fertilizer will be needed? Just the compost? My roomie seems concerned that we won't be adding fertilizer, and I wanted to be sure I am understand all the info I've been reading correctly!

Thanks SO MUCH in advance for any help that you all can give! I'm impatient to start my garden, but I want to go about this the right way!

Crystal