Last week I posted about our ability to become accidental pumpkin gardeners at our old house. In response to that post “Jen on the Edge” made a comment about lasagna gardening. Of course, my mind went immediately to that gooey Italian dish. But this isn’t what Jen meant.
“Instead of digging a garden, you build one by layer leaves, grass clippings, compost, dirt, etc. on top of layers of newspaper or cardboard. If you do it now, you’ll have a great garden and amazing dirt next spring,” Jen wrote.
I was intrigued, because this sounded relatively easy. Also, I have been making compost for over a year but haven’t been able to do anything with it. This seemed like the perfect opportunity.
Just to be sure I didn’t end up making a mess of my yard, first I did some additional research on the lasagna garden.
This article from Mother Earth News, though nearly 10 years old, offered a great primer on the lasagna garden.
Basically, you’re building up your own garden by using things you already own, in a spot that gets a decent amount of sun. Here’s what you’ll need:
* newspapers or flattened sheets of cardboard
* leaves or grass clippings
* compost material, like coffee grounds
First, you lay down a layer of newspaper to choke out any grass or weeds below it. The Mother Earth News article recommends a couple of things–putting at least three layers of newspaper down, and then wetting the sheets. The wet newspaper won’t be as likely to blow away (good if you’re doing some lasagna gardening on a breezy day like I was), and it helps to start the “break down” process of the newspaper on the stuff underneath.
Next, you put down a layer of leaves on top of the newspaper. If you compost, you know that in order to get your organic matter to break down, you need to layer it brown, green, brown, green, etc. The lasagna garden, which is really a composting garden, is no different. So the first layer of leaves is your first layer of brown. (In the picture, right, I hadn’t fully covered the newspaper with leaves so you could see things a bit better. I did put on a pretty thick layer before moving on to the next step.)
So the next step is layering your “green”–weird, because it isn’t really the green part at all. It’s the compost, which is brown. I must admit that it was a bit challenging spreading moist compost around on leaves, since the leaves tended to move with the compost. But I gutted it out, and got the job done.
After that I did another layer of leaves for my “brown.” Thankfully, I’ve 
got a ton of trees on my property and many of them had dropped their leaves. So I wasn’t wanting for any leaves for this project. If you have a yard without a lot of trees, you can dump the clippings from your lawn mower as your brown layer–again, weird since the clippings are actually green. FYI, you’re supposed to make your brown layer about twice as thick as the green layer. Oh and at this point? I was completely out of compost. I’ve got something like an 80-gallon compost bin, so this used up a lot of compost.
Because I was now out of compost, this layer of leaves had to be my last. This lasagna garden is supposed to be close to two-feet high when you’re done. Mine didn’t get quite that big. I stuck a yard stick in the pile to see that it got to about 16 inches. Not perfect but not bad for a couple of hours of work.
Now to get some pumpkins to carve in time for Halloween, so I can dump their guts in my lasagna garden. I’m also wondering what other kinds of seeds I could dump there. Any ideas?
READ LEAH ON HOME GOES STRONG
I’m so glad you gave this a try!
The nice thing about this type of gardening is that you don’t have to be precise in your brown/green ratios.
I recommend the book “Lasagna Gardening” by Patrician Lanza. (Probably available in your library.) In the book, she talks about how you can pretty much dump any organic matter onto your future garden and in any proportions.
I built a couple of gardens at my new house yesterday. I used dirt, manure, compost, and leaves. I wasn’t terribly precise in my ratios, but I also know that it won’t matter next spring.
I plan to add blueberry bushes next spring, so in the area where they’ll be, I’ll be adding in loads and loads of pine needles, as that helps increase the acidity of the soil, which blueberries love.
So now I’m ready to take my pumpkin seeds and “guts” over after Halloween and bury them in one of the new gardens. I’m also considering planting garlic soon so that I’ll plenty available to me next summer. I might also start transplanting some of my hearty herbs now so that I don’t have to do it when we move next spring.
I just found you from a link on “Mish”. He thinks pretty highly of you!
http://www.globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/
I am putting a link to your blog on my blog, so I can find you again and so my readers can find you too.
My hubby and I were wondering about composting–Thanks.
A Bishops Wife:
Please include a link here to your blog. I would love to see what topic you’re covering in your blog.
I appreciate Mish’s linking to my blog this past weekend. It encouraged about 1,000 new people to take a look.
Thanks!
Leah
We did this last year when our yard was being dug up to remove the septic tank and install sewers, and we didn’t know where the construction work would be.
Check out our
"No dig garden" on our website.
As mentioned there, this method is similar to one promoted by Ruth Stout in the 1950′s in Organic Gardening magazine. If you can find a copy of her book, it’s fascinating reading.
We had great results and will be doing more of this next year as we reconfigure our garden plots.
What a great idea!
I do organic gardening and this year I put a layer of newspaper down before doing organic compost and seeds / plants. What a difference – VERY little weeds to deal with throughout the season. YEA!
Question: with this layering you wrote about, does it compact down so that in the spring it’s pretty level or what? The idea of “stepping up” into the garden is interesting …
Thanks for the tip.
This is the way I did all my beds when I lived in California. I just kept adding compost every year, it was amazing. Earthworms love this sort of garden. I used cardboard instead of newspaper since I had a free source for that.
regards,
Theresa
[...] habits that we’ve reduced our garbage output and I had all the supplies I needed to create a lasagna garden last [...]
I’m excited to try this, along with some raised beds, this fall. Oh, and I discovered homemade yogurt. Read about it here:
mykitchenmyvice.blogspot.com
Sounds great, Keri. Let us know how it goes.
Leah
[...] I use the free dirt from my compost in my garden, it would have been awesome to have a tool that could turn my yard waste into free [...]
There is an interesting aspect about lasagna gardening that many folks don’t realize, because their focus is only on their own yard. But some time, Google the words newspaper, cardboard, recycling and facts. Especially “facts”. Some homeowners may be surprised to see the numbers. Suppose several neighbors use 100 to 2000 pounds of cardboard or newspaper instead of recycling. What does that mean for the environment and resources if the same amount of new cardboard needs to be made brand new, because the same amount was not recycled? It might be food for thought about whether or not to lay the layers, or if the layers should be layed thinner. This was something I just learned more about this year.