I decided to make yesterday “planting day” for my vermi lasagna garden. I’ve been a tad frustrated with the slow growth of my seedlings in their starter pots so far, and figured I might as well just get them growing in the garden (normally I’d let them grow a little more before doing so).
I really want these plants to do well, so rather than trying to push the envelope with my usual cramped spacing approach, I am only putting two of them in the lasagna garden – one “Italian Ribbed Zucchini” and one “Vegetable Marrow Squash”. These are both summer bush varieties so I think they will be well suited for this bed.
My planting approach was pretty straight-forward. Being a little concerned about all the bulky waste materials in the bed, I decided to create a decent sized zone with rich compost for the young squash to grow in. I started by creating a hole down almost to the soil level.
Next, I filled it up with coarse (but quality) vermicompost from my wooden backyard worm bin.
For kicks and giggles I decided to try mixing in some of my new rock dust as well.
Then I simply planted each squash, topping up with more compost for good measure.
It looked as though there were plenty of worms down below in the bed when I was excavating the planting holes so I think that’s a pretty good sign! I will start adding some more food wastes (likely in the middle) now that the plants are in so they have a nice rich zone to draw nutrients from once they get bigger (and their root system is more extensive).
8)
Take a picture in 2 weeks…
Bentley,
What do you do to prevent the squash vine borer? Everytime that I try to grow squash, they get attacked by the borer.
Hi RabbitHerder,
I don’t do anything in particular – I like to think that keeping the plants nice and healthy helps to keep the pests at bay, but perhaps it’s just a matter of not having that particular pest in my area.