I'm reviving this old thread in hopes of getting some help with a confusion I have. I live in Italy and have made a tiny little Lasagna garden, in which I hope to grow peas (with some green leafies) this next spring, and later, after growing brassica during cold season, put Nitrogen fixing green manure plants the following spring. Nitrogen fixing bacteria Inoculants are not available here in Italy (and the UK company mentioned by the previous poster sells only huge farm-appropriate quantities and does not sell via internet). I think I understand that the reason these are not widely sold in Europe, as they are in the US, is because vetches, wild peas, wild medicago and wild clover grow spontaneously here, and so the appropriate nitrogen fixing bacteria are already present in the soil. (Is that the reason? Maybe not- since there IS this one company in England making them???) Problem is, I won't be planting into good old Italian soil, but into a compost pocket made in my probably still decomposing "lasagna". I didn't put any native dirt in my "lasagna", just alfalfa, straw, green herbacous plant leaves, finished vegetable compost, and a bit of organc soy flour, seaweed flakes, and rock dust. So-- the nitrogen fixing Rhizobium won't be present. (right?) Would it work if, instead of planting into a compost pocket in the lasagna. I filled the pocket with a mix of dirt from my yard and compost? In my yard, which I have always left to grow spontaneous plants, I have seen wild vetches and wild medicago, but I don't think I've seen wild peas or clovers. (so would I still have a problem if I want to plant peas or clover and have then fix abundant nitrogen?) Also, I was thinking to sow the peas under cover, in toilet paper tubes, since I have tons of snails and slugs that would eat the sprouts, so I thought I'd sow in a seed sowing medium. But maybe for peas that isn't necessary, and I could sow in the cardboard tubes filed with native dirt and compost mix? or maybe just fill the cardboard sowing containers with yard dirt, to have greater concentration of any rhizobium nitrogen fixers that may be there?
