Lasagna Gardening

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Loosen the earth and gently shake off any dirt. Let the cloves cure by hanging them in a dry place. The individual cloves will each make a head, so you will have plenty to use, as well as to save for next year's seed.

Site and soil. Good drainage, full sun, and plenty of manure-rich compost are best. A well-built lasagna bed has the perfect growing conditions to start, then all you have to do is add grass clippings or chipped leaves for mulch to keep the soil evenly moist and weeds at a minimum.

Planting and harvest. Gardeners in the Northeast and zone 5 and colder climates will get best results from hard-neck garlic planted in the fall and harvested the next summer. Milder climates can grow soft-neck; plant in the spring and harvest that same fall.

If you haven't room for an entire bed just for garlic, plant some in groups of three to five cloves in flower or vegetable beds. Folks who have bug problems swear by the positive effect garlic has on its companions.

LETTUCE

Anyone can grow lettuce. The problem is most folks grow too much at one time. Use a little restraint and make successive plantings. Mix lettuce seed with sand so you will not have to do so much thinning. I broadcast a mixture of cut-and-come-again lettuce once a month for the duration of growing time for my zone.

Site and soil. Lettuce likes it cool and so is ideally suited for spring and fall plantings. I use other taller plants to shade my lettuce in summer. It's best to prepare a site for lettuce in the fall, adding a high nitrogen amendment (such as fresh grass clippings) to the top two inches of soil.

Planting and harvest. Lettuce is a fun crop to grow in containers, as borders, and in tiny spaces that would only go to waste otherwise. There's really no safe place to hide when I start looking for places to plant. I've planted Ruby Red and Oakleaf lettuce in my herb and edible flower containers and flower boxes. I interplant herbs and lettuce in the border gardens that surround my antique roses. The Mesclun mixes are wonderful in big terra cotta saucers that stand alone in part shade.

When guests come for dinner, I give them a colander and a pair of scissors and point them toward the garden. They come back with an interesting collection of edibles and never forget the experience. Lots of good gardeners start out by getting their feet dirty in someone else's garden.

POTATOES

No need to dig trenches or to hill up. Build a lasagna bed to eliminate grass and weeds, don't use any lime or nitrogen rich materials (such as grass clippings), lay down one or two sheets of wet newspaper, lay seed potatoes on top of the paper, and cover with spoiled hay or compost. You can use pretty much anything you have that is dried. Chipped leaves are great for covering the tubers. I use hay that is well-cured and lying next to my potato bed, so I don't have to carry it too far.

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