Are you thinking of creating a new garden bed next spring? If so, consider doing your ground preparation this fall with an all-natural, no-dig technique called “lasagna gardening”! You may be wondering, why is it called lasagna gardening? Read this article to find out! (We apologize if the word lasagna makes you hungry…)
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Similar to the delicious dinner, lasagna gardens feature many, many layers of organic materials. When you layer all this organic matter on top of grass/weeds instead of digging, not only do you save yourself many back-breaking hours but you preserve the integrity and structure of the soil and feed all the soil-building building critters that call your soil home.

Now we know what it is, so let's talk about how to build your lasagna garden.

​First, you need to mark out the area for your new garden. It should be approximately a foot longer and wider than you originally planned.  Next, mow the grass/weeds that are currently growing there as short as you can… go ahead and scalp it!  Then, take all those Amazon, Chewy, and Fed Ex boxes that have been collecting in the corner of your garage and break them down flat, remove any tape, and cover the mowed area with them. They should be one layer deep and overlapping by about 6 – 8 inches. Next, wet the cardboard with a hose. You can also use sections of wetted newspaper but they need to be thick sections. You may need to use a few bricks (or something else with weight) to keep the boxes down while they work their magic.

Then, over the next couple months every time you mow, lay down a thin layer (1/2 inch or so) of grass clippings. And the same goes for when leaves start to fall from your tree. Mulch or chop the dried leaves with your mower and put them on top of the lasagna garden. Repeat these layers until mowing season is over and the leaves stop falling. If you have a compost pile or access to bagged or bulk compost, you could layer that finished compost on too. If you used a bale of straw as a fall decoration, spread that out on it as well!

Once you have your layers started, be sure to keep the pile moist (not soggy, think wrung out sponge). At this point, some people also like to cover their new bed with a tarp or something similar; however I never have and it has still worked just fine.

A couple hints – Chopping everything into small bits helps it decompose faster. You can layer most organic matter, even if it was not mentioned here.  Some other examples include: used coffee grounds, tea bags, weeds that have no seeds or that don’t root along the stem, coconut choir, egg shells, spent plants, etc. Avoid using dairy, meat, or oils and fats unless you are trying to ring the dinner bell for the neighborhood wildlife, dogs, and cats.  Also, it can get a bit stinky!

By late next spring, the bugs, worms, microorganisms, and weather should have done its work and your soil should be grass or weed free, fluffy, and ready to plant in! Even if it doesn’t look like what you would normally plant into yet, go ahead and live on the wild side, and plant your garden. However, if you are not the ‘wild side’ sort of person (no judgement here!) – spread out an inch or so of well-decomposed compost or topsoil over the top. Then, plant through this - garden on!

This month's blog features a Staff Spotlight of the newest Lucas SWCD employee, ​Patrick Troyer, our Education Specialist.

How long have you worked for Lucas SWCD?
Since mid-June 2022

​What did you do prior to joining the Lucas SWCD team?
I am a 2013 graduate of Paulding High School and a 2016 graduate of THE Ohio State University with a bachelor's degree in agriculture. My start in education came following college when I worked for the Paulding Soil and Water Conservation District from 2016-2020, serving as the Education Specialist most of that time. From there, I turned to doing more field-based work for County and Federal government agencies, but conservation education kept calling me back home -- so here I am! 
 
What is your favorite part about your job? 
It brings me such great joy to be back where I feel I belong and to watch the many wonders of the natural world come alive for folks of all ages.

What is something you want to share with our readers?
My goal for my position is quite simple: Learn as much as we can and have lots of fun while doing it! I hope that the lessons provided will help supplement teachers' curriculum or community program with engaging, hands-on activities that will spark interest in your students or participants in the wonderful world that is out there! I am still learning the ropes around the office and trying to get a feel for the programs I would like to offer. Be on the look out for a program guide soon! 

What is something you enjoy doing outside of work?
I reside in Oakwood, Ohio in Paulding County with my sweet dog, Trey, and two cats, Bert and Ernie, on our family farm. Some of my favorite hobbies are helping on the farm, reading a good book, spending time with my family, and going for a long walk in the woods. 

Welcome, Patrick, to the Lucas SWCD family! To reach Patrick, email him at PTroyer@co.lucas.oh.us or call the office at (419) 893-1966 ext. 2#. 

“Do you like butter?”
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To the disappointment of children everywhere, dandelions may not really indicate if you like butter. But happily, they can be made into quaint little chains to be used as necklaces or crowns and they can amuse children as they blow on the fluffy heads and chase the little parachute seeds. 

On the more grown up side of things, dandelions are full of healthy nutrients such as calcium, iron, and magnesium as well as vitamins A and K (2).  They can be added to spring salads, sautéed as a nutritious green, used as a coffee alternative, made into tea, and used as a diuretic. (2)  Of course, you should always consult your doctor before consuming.

Dandelions can also be used as an indicator of problematic soil. For example, dandelions often show up in droves if your soil is low in calcium and organic matter (6). In fact, because of their long tap root, they have been known to transport and store nutrients such as potassium and calcium in their leaves.

A good portion of my daily work involves conservation best management practices for agricultural operations.  These BMPs are the management systems that we promote to help farmers improve soil health while reducing their inputs and thereby reducing their risk of phosphorus runoff, which contributes to the harmful algal blooms.  Through the research and promotion of these various conservation practices, I’ve found that they are not only beneficial for farmers and their soils, but also for home gardens.  No matter the size of your garden (or farm), the principles to improve soil health are generally the same.
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Here are a few examples:

• Soil Testing & Nutrient Management - whether you are growing a field of corn, a patch of tomatoes, or just trying to improve your lawn, a good first step is testing your soil.  A soil test will tell you the current state of your soil, the available nutrients, the pH, the percentage of organic matter, etc.  Knowing the characteristics of your soil will help determine what your soil needs to adequately grow your plants.  

 

• Diversifying & Crop Rotation - growing the same thing on the same patch of soil year after year makes your plants more susceptible to disease and degrades the soil.  For farmers it is recommended to rotate crops, and the same can be said for home gardens.  A given plant, whether it is a stalk of corn, a flower, or a tomato, will pull certain nutrients from the soil.  Growing a diverse mix of plants adds a diverse mix of roots and organic matter to your soil.  What nutrients one plant pulls from the soil, another may add.  Even in your lawn, having some clover growing amongst your grass gives the lawn added nutrients without the need of applying fertilizers.

 

• Cover Crops - the method of farmers using cover crops to add biodiversity to their soils and protect the ground from weathering while not growing a cash crop also works for your home garden.  Growing a cover crop after your harvest is completed will help retain nutrients, add biodiversity, and protect the soil for next year's planting.  Cover crops also help suppress weeds, conserve water, and keep the soil biology active. 

 

• No-Till - there has been a lot of talk lately for farmers to adopt no-till (no tillage) as a conservation practice.  Tillage (turning the top few inches of topsoil) is typically done to kill weeds and prepare the area for planting.  However doing so destroys the structure of the soil, undoing the benefits that have been developed by other conservation practices.  Tillage also increases the risk of sediment and nutrient runoff.  So if you are adopting soil health practices, whether on a farm field or a garden, don’t undo all that work by turning your soil!  Only disturb/dig the exact places where you will be planting and leave the rest of the soil intact.

 

• Mulching - after you’ve harvested your crop/vegetables or your flowers have begun to dry out for the season, there is often the question of what to do with the leftover plant matter.  Mulch it and leave it!  Chopping up all the plant matter and returning it to the soil will add organic matter and nutrients to the soil.  This works for cover crops and lawns too.  Mulching your plants and leaves and adding them back into your soil is like getting free fertilizer.  That plant residue also helps the soil retain water and suppress weeds.

 
Don’t feel pressured to try all of these practices right away.  Start small with one practice, like soil testing, and build from there.  Adopting just one of these practices will benefit your soil in multiple ways, improving the health of your plants and reducing the amount of time, water, and fertilizer that you need to spend on maintaining your garden.  And remember that the same principles apply, whether you are working on a small garden bed or acres of farm field.

This month's blog features a unique Staff Spotlight as our longest-tenured staff member at the Lucas SWCD recently announced her retirement. ​Jamie Kochensparger, our Education & Outreach Director, will be retiring this summer. But before that happens, we wanted to share Jamie's Staff Spotlight with you to give a glimpse into who she is and her amazing career as an SWCD employee.

How long have you worked for Lucas SWCD?
18 years at LSWCD, 31 years in Environmental Education

​What did you do prior to joining the Lucas SWCD team?
I began my “career” in conservation as a child exploring the marshes of the Sandusky River area near Fremont, Ohio. My childhood home and parents are still located on the banks of the Sandusky River, where I have watched the water quality, habitat and wildlife populations all improve in the last 50 years due to environmental laws, improved land use and personal practices. There is still a lot more room for improvement, so that is why I strive to educate and assist people with conservation.
 
This inspired me to graduate from Bowling Green State University with a BA in Environmental Policy & Analysis with an emphasis on Environmental Education. I worked for 10 years as a Naturalist/Ranger for the Sandusky County Park District, then 3 years as the Public Information Specialist for the Ohio Lake Erie Commission. After OLEC, I was the Director of the Ottawa County Visitors Bureau for a year and a half before joining the Lucas SWCD. 

What is your favorite part about your job? 
I love creating and developing programs that help people understand environmental concepts and get inspired to make changes. I love interacting with people, answering their questions, and seeing that “light bulb” moment when everything clicks and a better understanding of our earth is reached. I enjoy assisting homeowners with implementing conservation practices such as pollinator habitats and composting, and seeing these residents feel empowered to make positive changes. Smiles and thank you's from our youth are the best highlight of all. 

This is the first article of a series titled, Conservation Starts at Home. Stay tuned for more!

​​During my first week of college at Bowling Green State University in the 1980’s, I kept hearing a strange noise in the dormitory. A continual low rumble. Then I realized it was the sound of the showers running 24 hours a day. The water never seemed to be shut off. Sometimes there was no one even using the facilities, just that someone had left the shower or the sink running. 

Why was this sound so strange to me? I grew up in a home right here in NW Ohio that had to have its water supply hauled to the house and put into a holding cistern, 2,000 gallons at a time. Literally, every drop we used counted, both in supply and in dollars.

So the rule in our house was that everyone took what the Navy called a “Sea Shower”, for when out to sea the freshwater supply was extremely limited. This means you turn the shower water on just long enough to get wet, and then turn the water off while you do the soap, shampoo and shaving. Then you turn the water back on just long enough to rinse off.
I thought it was the same way for everyone until that ear-opening experience at college. At first, being able to let the water run the entire time of the shower seemed like an appealing luxury. But if you added up the amount of water, multiplied by all of the dormitories, it was a mind-boggling amount.

I grew up recycling, conserving, re-using, and reducing – partly because it was the 1970’s when Earth Day celebrations started and partly because my father was very frugal. But since it was always that way at our house, and we were still able to have otherwise normal lives, it never seemed a burden at all. I still continue most of those practices today.

Happy Friday! Throughout 2022, we will be featuring each of the Lucas SWCD staff members on our blog where they will answer a series of questions to help you get to know them. This month, meet Joey Sink-Oiler, our District Manager! 

How long have you worked for Lucas SWCD?
6 1/2 years

What did you do prior to joining the team at Lucas SWCD?
Prior to working at Lucas SWCD as the District Manager, I was a small business owner, the Executive Director of a non-profit, a mediator trained through the Ohio Supreme Court, as well as a volunteer within my local community for 30 years. After obtaining a 2-year certificate in counseling, I attended OSU and Hocking College to get my degree in GeoEnvironmental Science.  The diversification of trainings and job experiences I have had have been critical to my success in my current position.

What is your favorite part of your job?
I love my job! Picking just one area to be my favorite is difficult. But, if I have to pick just one, it would be what our office does on a daily basis to help people live a better and healthier life each and every day.  The best management practices we promote for both the urban and agricultural arenas are scientifically based with evidence supporting our mission. Also, having a highly trained, professional staff increases our effectiveness in teaching these practices. Our office is a GREAT place to work! 

What is something you want to share with our readers?
At the Lucas SWCD, we are trying to find a new location for our office as we have outgrown our current space and have other space related issues forcing us to move. We are also seeking other funding streams to support this move. If any of our readers would have suggestions or potential spaces available, I would love to chat with them!

What is something you enjoy doing outside of work?
I love the outdoors, and one way I have of enjoying it is through photography. I am an avid wildlife and landscape photographer and have been for years. I recently had photos chosen to be displayed in an online magazine and in four art galleries in Chicago, IL, Limassol, Cypress, Melbourne, Australia, and Berlin, Germany. ​(Check out the slideshow at the bottom of the post to see some of Joey's pictures!)

Stop by the office and say hi to Joey! Stay tuned for next month's blog post from Jamie all about conservation at home. ​​

Hello readers! Welcome to the new Lucas Soil and Water Conservation District blog. 

Throughout the year, we will share information about our upcoming programs and events, interesting topics relevant to soil and water conservation, and also offer you an opportunity to get to know our staff.

We will post an article on the last Friday of each month, starting in January. You can check back here or on our Facebook page to read the most recent article or to access the archives. Please share with family or friends who would find the information useful.

​Thanks for reading and stay tuned for our first article at the end of this month!

P.S. If you want to be even more informed of what's happening at the Lucas SWCD, sign up for our newsletter below! We send it out twice a year and it is packed with information including Tree and Native Plant Sale order forms, agricultural program opportunities, and more.