Mary, Garden, Contrary, Grow, How?

Wondering if you were wondering how our wonderful gardens are created.  Well, we wondered if we could share the wonder of it with you all.  All this is done under the scrupulous and detailed direction of the Director of the orphanage, Families for Children.  For more detail on the gardens go to gardensforchildren.blogspot.com

It really is extra different from any garden I have done (just do not ask me how many gardens I have done).  It all starts off with coconut coir, the stuff around the hard shell that protects the coconut (I never really knew about this stuff myself until I came here).  Make sure though that the coir has been soaking in water for at least three days before applying.

Then comes the dirt pudding, but be wary how you throw it on.  You do  not want to disturb the coir slumbering sweetly. This mixture comes from the dirt which was previously removed from the garden site, before coir was laid.

Of course we could not proceed without explaining the composition and nature of the pudding.  It consists of a lovely mixture of dirt, goat dung, and vermi-compost, all jumbled together and moistened until it threatens to become mud.  Dried leaves are optional.  You should have two piles of this pudding.

Some call this type of garden a lasagna garden, and here you can see why.  Noodles!  Actually, it happens to be old, cold, moldy hay that was used to grow mushrooms, but has since been retired from that service and was promoted to garden use. The hay is applied liberally on top of the dirt pudding.

After that, we again laid sopping wet coir, and threw on our second pile of the dirt pudding as the finishing touch to our lasagna garden.  It definitely takes work and time, and hopefully the result are as rewarding as our labor was intensive.  If so we should have wonderful delicious vegetables.  By now we have four of these gardens, and we are continuing to do more.
Here it comes, the moral of the story.  A strong back and a weak mind make a happy gardener. Obviously not.  If you are working too hard, stop and figure out a better way to do it.  In this very garden we planted four young tomato plants and after a week or so one had died and the others looked exactly the same as when we had planted them. Now they have grown a little, but not much.  Oh well, we are not in charge of the garden, so maybe a strong back and a weak mind would not be such a bad idea!

Anyway, this is David your Post Host.  You  really do not need a strong back or mind to know that you never know when I will post again.