lasagna bed disastar

[OliveOil]

In the heat my lasagna beds (5) have dried out... checked my pumpkins today and 2 were dry and the rest unhappy!

I have no water up the allotment, can only take milk bottles that i can carry... should i transplant them to another area... or is there a way of ressurecting the lasagna piles?

[OliveOil]

[artichoke]

What a shame. I have a long lasagna bed at my new allotment (basically a grassy field) and the only reason I can manage is that there IS water on that allotment. I go there every few days and water them fairly thoroughly. It's my first bed of that type and I could see immediately that constant watering must be one of the requirements of new beds, at least until they are established and the roots are able to go  down into the rotted cardboard and newspaper, dead weeds and real soil.

I use your bottle method on my old allotment where there is no water. One thing I have been doing lately is taking as many bottles as I can manage each time and filling up a bigger container, then filling the borttles again and again. This means that every now and then I can fill up buckets of water and really slosh them around, hoping that the water goes deeper down than sprinkling with the little bottles....

People tell us that however dry the ground looks, deeper down each particle of soil is coated with winter moisture, and the deeper the roots go the more chance they have to reach that moisture. That just can't happen in the first year of a lasagna bed.

I have a long row of psb transplanted (with water) about a month ago into an ordinary bed, and I have forced myself not to water them since, in spite of the lack of rain and killing heat, and rather to my surprise they are upright and growing.

Maybe you can bring your pumpkins back - I can't tell - but good luck!

Very best of luck.

[OliveOil]

Decided i would replant them... carefully started to dig about the lasagna bed with a trowel and realised the roots had taken off and it was quite damp underneath around the roots... so watered them again and left them there!  They did look happier today!

[amphibian]

I wonder how the energy put inot lugging watering cans, mulch etc about compares to the energy used in digging?

[OliveOil]

Well i dont think i'll do a lasgna bed again!