Organic Gardening

I'm doing my bit for recycling and organic gardening.  Even if it kills me.

A year ago, a friend of mine who homeschools four children, waxed poetic about her backyard garden.  I told her that my flower beds were overgrown and that I was dreading getting them back in shape.  So much grass to pull and weeds to eradicate!  She suggested wet newspapers.  She said that if you soak newspapers in water and layer the ground around your plants, then mulch on top of the newspaper, it will keep weeds from coming through.

This is an organic gardening tip that I can use... but I've got a lot of flower beds that have been 'let go' and it's gonna take a bunch of newspapers.  So, I sent out the word to my writer friends, please save your newspapers.  I offered to pick them up at their homes, or they could bring them to the meetings and I'd get them there.  The ladies really stepped up to the plate.  I've got a lot of newspapers.

Yesterday, I went to the store and bought a bunch of plants and 10 bags of mulch.  Then I started in my front flower beds and planted the little flowers.  Then I layered the newspapers around them.  You have to use several sections and overlap them.  Then I wet down the newspapers until they were sodden and covered them with mulch.

The front beds look a lot better.  I hope the little plants all survive my handling.  I'm not the most graceful gardener.  I think I stepped on a couple as I was moving in and out of the beds with my hands full.

I will need roughly 100 times more newspaper to continue the process into the back yard.  I'm going to have to hit up some other sources to find more newspapers to recycle this way.

--Sandee Wagner