Lasagna Garden Design and Concept

I'm sure the few of you that are reading my blog are beginning to ask yourselves what a lasagna garden is.  No, its not a garden designed to produce crops for making lasagna.  Yes, it is a garden designed to provide continuous nutrients to the plants through a method of layering that slightly resembles that of a...you guessed it, lasagna!

People have been using this method for a very long time and its been called many different things.  Some of them being sheet composting, no dig garden, no weed garden, etc...  It has become increasingly more popular because of a book written by Patricia Lanza, Lasagna Gardening: A New Layering System for Bountiful Gardens: No Digging, No Tilling, No Weeding, No Kidding!  Patricia describes the way that her grandmother grew everything she needed to live on and how she has adapted those methods and built on them.  Like I said people have been doing this for a long time I think that Patricia is just the first to put it all into words, and she did it well.  It's a very easy read.  She also has another book on lasagna gardening that is dedicated to herbs, that may interest some of you that want to get your hands dirty but want to start on a smaller scale.  If your serious about getting into gardening I think its one of the better books out there.

So back to what a lasagna garden actually is.  A lasagna garden is a system of layering materials in a manner that stops weed growth from beneath the garden and provides constant nutrients to the plants by continually breaking down organic matter throughout the season from within.  Essentially your planting a garden in a giant compost.  Here is a diagram of what went into the layers of my garden:

Some notes on my garden:

I obtained everything with the exception of the hay for free.  The manure came from a stable near my home, they was more than happy to give me all the manure I could haul off.  They actually use it to fill pot holes and low spots on the property...yeah that's how much poop they have.  I've heard you are supposed to let manure, horse, cow, or otherwise, dry out for a long period of time.  This is supposed to allow the weed seeds time to die, I'm not sure.  It doesn't matter because it was all fresh and it all went in my garden.  If its a problem I'll let you know.  On another note, never use waste from animals that eat meat, ie. dogs, cats, etc...  pet waste can carry disease.  The leaves I got from a landscaper who was doing some work in my neighborhood.  You have to remember all this waste is a nuisance to most of these people.  It's easy for you to take away and they'll be happy to give you more if you need it.  Trust me, just stop and ask them.  The organic planting soil came from the old raised beds I had.  There was tons of dead plant matter in them and it was almost like a compost in itself.  There was also a good amount of earthworms in those raised beds that got recycled into my new garden.  The ash came from my fire pit on my back porch and the compost, well that's self explanatory.  In the image above you can sort of still make out the layers in the beds, but best of all you can see how it darkens towards the bottom, that's because its all breaking down into delicious plant nutrients!

Layers should be composed of brown matter and green matter in a ratio of roughly 4:1.  This will give you a good pH balanced soil to plant in.  Brown matter would be materials like leaves, straw and hay.  These are high carbon materials.  Green matter would be materials like grass clippings, kitchen waste, manure and weeds (before they go to seed).  Green materials are high nitrogen materials.  So that ratio is 4 parts high carbon to 1 part high nitrogen.  I just winged it when it came to figuring out the right amount of each material.  You can weigh out your different parts if you'd like, more power to you, but frankly I have better things to do than weigh plant and animal matter.  Oh and by the way I tested the pH of my soil in my garden the other day and its 7, plants generally like a soil that is really near 7 give or take.  Besides, the whole point of a lasagna garden is that it does most of the work for you, refer to the title of Patricia's book please.

The news paper and the cardboard should be layed fairly thick, the purpose of it is to block out any plant life from growing through the bottom of your garden.  I got my newspaper from the grocery store news stand, the green sheet, its free, and besides we have craigslist now, who needs the greensheet.

I used hay because that's what I have available to me here in south east Texas, but you should use what ever is available to you and cheap.  Peat moss is supposed to be very good, but is not all that renewable.  Research what is best for you in your area, this is just a guide its not a bible.

When planting, if the garden hasn't broken down significantly, open the beds and put a couple scoops of compost in and plant directly in that.  The lasagna beds will continue to break down around your plantings and provide nutrients throughout the season.  When seeding, I just pile compost in a line about 1 1/2" deep and seed in the top of that row.

If you have planned well enough and you are getting your beds ready early, for spring or fall, cover them with black plastic for a couple weeks.  This will speed up the decomposition rate.  The plastic holds the heat in so your beds aren't cooling down at night.

When you're finished laying your beds down they will probably be 2 - 3' tall.  Don't worry they will break down more than you could imagine.  All that plant matter will break down to 8 or 9" deep.  Its going to be really rich and I would bet it will just about have the perfect pH.

I'm really excited about this spring's plantings, I've already started seeding directly into my beds and the results are pretty good.  Below is a photo of a row of spinach.

My seedlings that I've been growing inside the house will go in the ground Monday of next week.

So my garden will be in full swing in a couple weeks, I'll keep you updated on how things are going and growing.  Any additional notes on this method of gardening will be coming through in future posts.  I'm praying this garden will produce like all the hype I've read about lasagna gardens.  Because if it does I'll be giving fresh produce to all my friends and neighbors.  Good luck with yours!