'morning, I had never seen anybody here state that covers would not work along with the Ruth Stout method, so that was why I did it. For me it worked as well as anywhere else in the gardens. Cannot say that I have seen entire gardens grown in hay, however, I might be well on my way. Seems to be much less work than yearly tilling and weeding. You could not disturb the surface without hundreds of worms wigling about. I find the hay method truly amazing. Maybe I was 'icing' along the way. When I found a good continual source for free hay I made the move. First I applied char, then paper, then hay. Between layers I added some bone meal once, then hay, then homemade woodchips, then hay, then 1/2 bag sand from Lowes to fight slugs, then hay followed by the sand. The sand seemed to upset the slugs. Finaly grass clippings with leaves mowed along in. All that got me to where I applied the cover in late September. If I did something wrong let me know because it sure was easy on my back. Best regards.

Okay, I read it. The author seems like a very good gardener. I've been doing just that, except I don't use newspaper. I tried that newspaper thing some thirty years ago when everyone was doing all that sort of thing, gardening with newspaper and growing potatoes in spoiled hay and so on. But I didn't like it --- too messy, litter in the garden. Too bad! Because now we take the Wall Street Journal, and only use it to start fires. I like "lasagna gardening" for potatoes especially. I never SAW, much less grew, either white or sweet potatoes the size that came out of those soft beds full of organic material and fertilizer! My husband says I'm now in charge of potato gardening -- he was doing that, I was just growing some for new potatoes so it wouldn't mess up his produce weight count. But they turned out to be monster potatoes. It is true that one needs to keep adding material around the potato plants --- I did it three times during the season. Otherwise they poke out of the ground and get green.

Donn, I have always started my beds on top of weeds. I've never had a nice sod lawn:( Maybe some day.... But anyway, *MY* personal experience has been that if I pull back the paper and dig through the OM, the weeds underneath are brown, wet mush and yes, the worms are all in the roots of the, I am assuming by this time, dead weeds. I am planning on starting a new bed here in December. Why I don't know! Like I don't already have more going on than I can handle! I think this is where the addiction aspect of gardening comes in;) I'm going to give your reasoning a try and see if I notice a difference from my old faithful way. Maybe I have had success with my way of layering because I've always had horrible, compacted clay soil. Perhaps between the wet rotting OM on top and the compacted clay underneath, my weeds have no choice but to die.... PS. I hope I'm not coming across as being argumentative because that is not my attitude at all. I really am curious to see if there is a difference in the manner of layering. I'm always open to getting the garden job done in the easiest, most beneficial way.

The how, the why? I haven't used this method for over 20 years, but I'll take a shot at it. What I have to say is about marginal soils, not the deep silt soils of agricultural areas, nor mostly sand soils. People who have deep silt topsoil don't often come here looking for help and sand is a special situation. Most all marginal soils support plants of some kind. It's not that they won't grow anything, but they fail to grow the plants we want in a vigorous fashion. A typical marginal soil has a thin layer of topsoil over a compacted subsoil. The subsoil is often seen at a depth of 6 inches and the clay faction of the subsoil is usually 20% or greater. Compacted subsoils that contain clay suffer oxygen deficiency. Plants differ in their ability to tolerate an oxygen deficiency, and most of the plants that gardeners want can't use soil where the oxygen is depleted. Such plants have their root zone restricred to the top 6 inches. Roots that do grow deeper are inefficient and add little to the plant growth. But you don't even get a 6 inch depth for roots. The top 2 inches are subject to swings in moisture and temperture that remove this area from the active root zone. Now let's look at putting a lasagne layer over such a soil. The first thing that happens is the temperture and moisture in the top 2 inches of soil is stabilized and becomes a part of the active root zone. Where you had 4 inches, you now have 6, a 50% increase in available soil volume. It's like having a plant in too small a pot and moving it to the next size larger. Both organics and clay act as a buffer to hold plant nutrients loosely. When pure water comes in contact, these nutrients are given up and the water becomes a solution of the the things plants need. Rainfall perculating through a lasagne bed results in a weak compost tea seeping into the soil. So now we have 6 inches of root zone and a source of plant nutrients. Not great, but a big improvement over the original soil condition. Maybe this is good enough. If you choose plants that have some tolerance to oxygen deficiency and space them wide enough apart to give each plant it's needed soil volume, the result is good. An example might be hosta spaced with mulch between the clumps. It can be a neat look and is in fashion. There can also be a delayed benefit to a lasagne bed. Depending on the severity of the soil, the line of oxygen deficiency can be sudden and hard or it can be a gradient over several inches. Where the case is the latter, the increase in biomass in the active part of the soil leads to an increase of worms. Because the upper part of the oxygen deficiency zone is not completly devoid of oxygen, worms now encroach this area. As worm tunnels open airways, the upper part of the depletion zone gains oxygen and the line of oxygen deficiency is pushed ever deeper into the soil. This is one of the cases where you should not dig the soil.Where this occurs over a period of years, you may achieve a deep active root zone where plants of all types can be grown with much closer spacing. The delayed benefit is not always seen. It happens very slowly, if at all, where the clay faction of the subsoil is greater than 30%. If this is the type soil you have and you want to grow closely spaced plants of low tolerance to oxygen deficiency you will be disappointed with a lasagne bed. The best method of remediation of oxygen deficiency will differ with each soil type. Do whatever is needed and you too can have closely spaced vigorous plants ....