Thanks. :) Things are looking good. Everything is potted and moved for the winter. I was so excited I even started a new garden out in the yard. It's about 150' x 30' at its widest curve. I began with the traditional layer of ... cardboard! :)!!! Granted, this won't be a raised bed, but it'll be nice and healthy dirt. Christine (Also a fan of the casserole type and someone who is suddently aware of how hungry she is!)

When I raised Rabbits and spread the manure they produced around the garden beds I had no more problem with raccoons, or any other wildlife, then when I did not use that manure. Same with chicken, horse, cow, and the Llama (Alpaca, Vicuna) manure I used. Ripe produce, tomatoes, corn, lettuce, eggplant, peppers, etc. was what attracted them, not the manure.

Linked below is Pat Lanza's web site about Lasagna Gardening. I doubt that there is any specific recipe for building a bed. Here is a link that might be useful: Lasagna Gardening 101

I tend to think that many people believe they can "recycle" better than large corporations. IOW, just bury newspapers and cardboard boxes, turn it into compost and skip the middle man, since you are using it as decomposing material. You are saving energy, recycling, saving the landfills, and promoting an Organic garden with natural materials. I don't believe it for a second, now. As a teen I worked at a warehouse and we stacked broken down cardboard boxes outside the doors. After a rain, especially multiple rains this gooey slime would drip down the sides of the freight dock. It was nasty and sticky that never seemed to go away after the cardboard was picked up. Then years later using cardboard in my garden, thinking the way most do, I found cardboard two years later in the ground and even detected the gooey slime. That caused me to do some research and I found out that I was very far from Organic. I would have been more organic using Miracle-Gro. Here is what I found: Cardboard in cardboard boxes: Semi-Chem (semi-chemical fluting medium) is applied to stretch" the fibers, making it stronger and stiffer. Where the corrugated short fiber paper are usually used for peaks and valleys of each flute, then glued using starch adhesives. While these adhesives sound innocent enough since they are called, "starch adhesives" (usually shipped to the cardboard manufacturer as a powder) they are seldom made up of Tapioca dextrin, the adhesive used for postage stamps. They most likely will be incorporated with 5 to 15% resins, such as urea formaldehyde, and especially used for cartons where water resistance is helpful. Most dextrin combinations are heated upward of 600 degrees to create a stronger bonding agent. If the paper lacks the amount of wax necessary for good fluting, wax bars are introduced in the process. Newspaper ink: Since 2004, 95% of American newspaper ink is now soy based, as opposed to petroleum based. To make soy ink, soybean oil is slightly refined and then blended with pigment, resins, and waxes. Even though soybean oil is an edible vegetable oil, soy ink is not edible or 100% biodegradable because the pigments and other additives that are mixed with the oil are the same as those used in petroleum-based inks. However it does degrade four times as completely as standard petroleum inks. The fact that this newer ink has rave reviews how it can be "recycled" easier, doesn't mean it is safe for consumption. It only means the soy ink can be removed more easily than regular ink from recycled newspaper during the de-inking process. Maybe less of a concern, but still a concern is that 92% of soybean acreage in the US is planted with genetically-modified soybeans, which some believe can pose environmental and human health risks. I just don't think working so hard on my garden to get it right, I want to introduce consumer products into the soil if it's not necessary. The only motivation that I can see is that it makes you feel like you are recycling on the most basic level and saving a tiny bit of money. My cardboard and newspaper needs to go to a recycling plant or landfill and let dirt in my garden do the rest.