Learning the Way of Raised Beds

On a very winding and cold Saturday April 3rd, several north Whatcom residents offered a workshop of Raised Bed Gardening with a side dish of lasagna.

Cindy Visser, Virgi Diephuis and myself shared the benefits with constructing and using raised beds. The greatest benefit is a substantial increase in productivity. Behind the use of raised beds is using the "Square Foot Gardening" approach - intense and dense planting with ongoing rotation of harvested and new starts.

Describing and demonstrating the construction of raised beds using Lasagna or Sheet Mulch gardening was done by Jeff Littlejohn. This method helps to build up the organic component in the soil, reduce weeding, watering, and little need to till or disturb the soil community.

The 16 participants were very interested and motivated to try out raised gardening.

It was a real joy to meet new people and to join in around this common interest together. True community building!

[To zoom click on the pictures]