Lasagna for The Magic Food Bus Community Garden

ANOTHER VIEW - A grassy lawn is not always the best use of the land around a house. Instead, it can be a great place to grow an attractive assortment of flowers, herbs, fruits, and vegetables. Right in the middle of Blue Hill, across from the public library and in front of a beautiful old home now owned by Northern Light Blue Hill Hospital, Healthy Peninsula has its office. For years, we’ve had a demonstration garden in the front yard, using a raised bed system. But raised beds are often water guzzlers, and our wooden beds were falling apart.

- KATE O'DELL, HEALTHY PENINSULA BOARD MEMBER

Last weekend, Healthy Peninsula partnered with the hospital, and a group of volunteers, including medical students from Maine Area Health Education Center, to transform the area into larger, hopefully more productive in-ground garden beds. What better way for an agency with a focus on healthy eating to start a new growing design than with lasagna gardening!

Maine’s Cooperative Extension website describes lasagna gardening—also known as sheet mulching—as an easy and efficient way to establish new garden beds by layering compostable materials over the entire area where you want your new beds to be. Basically, we are composting in place, with no need to dig up sod or till.