I live in Texas, about an hour north of Dallas, in zone 7b. I have black clay soil. I have a front garden that came with the house that I want to be mostly decorative (flowers and flowering herbs). I also want to make a vegetable garden in the back. I’ve asked before in this community and got some suggestions on lasagna gardening and square foot gardening, but various things always came up and I never got around to doing much more than maintenance on what’s already growing. This year, I have decided, is going to be the year I get both the existing and not-yet-existing gardens in shape.
So, out of lasagna and square foot gardening, which is the least expensive? Will either (or both) improve my soil? Is there any reason why either one can’t be done organically?
If you square foot garden, what materials do you use for your frames? I need something fairly inexpensive and have nothing suitable lying around, so materials will most likely have to be purchased unless I get really lucky on freecycle.
Will adding sand and compost improve my soil, with or without the above gardening methods?
And finally, I have three rosemary bushes in my front garden. We had rain for over a month straight this summer, and they all died. I asked here and got the advice to give them until spring to see if they came back. Given my zone, roughly when should I give up on them if they don’t show some green? I want to keep them, but if they’re really most sincerely dead, the corpses are taking up about a third of my garden space that I’d like back.
