A garden book you'll definitely need to buy

Many of you might know Niki Jabbour's bestselling book The Year-Round Vegetable Gardener.  Niki has followed up with a new book that is truly fantastic.   Appealing to newbie, experienced, or any other level of gardener in between, this book contains 73 illustrated plans for a ridiculous number of specialized gardens.  I'm thrilled to say that my plan for growing an Asian vegetable garden is included.  This is a book that everyone will want to own - and it's available on the shelves of your favorite bookstores now!  

No-till gardening

One of these days, I'm going to collect all the materials to build a thick and proper lasagna garden.  But for now, the goal is to do take some action so that my raised beds aren't a fallow sitting duck, just waiting for any and all weed seeds to drift on in and take root.  Typically, by the time I'm ready to transplant my seedlings, my beds are filled with dandelions, shotweed, and creeping charlie.  

This spring, I started by weeding the garden well, adding a thick layer of compost and manure, then topping it all off with a thick (and it needs to be thicker than it is in the photo above) layer of straw.  Below, when I'm ready to plant, I'll be able to pull out the mulch and simply plop the seedling in the soil.  We'll see if this method reduces my weed-pulling time and how it lasts the season!  Do you "no-till" or use a lasagna gardening method?  How does it work for you?  

spring garden peas