I'm thinking it would be significantly easier to do a "fake" lasagna bed. Lay out the cardboard/newspaper, wet, 3"-4" layer of shredded leaves or straw and call it good. Do one proper lasagna bed - as big a one as you have materials for. It's better to dop one bed well than skimpily do a larger space. Till straw and dry leaves into the rest of the beds and cover them with straw, cardboard and more straw. Check them in early spring and see how it's doing. You may be pleasantly surprised. My quibble with the paths is that the grass will spread into the beds. Cover the paths with cardboard. My quibble with 18 inches is that if an adult is kneeling across a path of that width, knees are in one bed and toes in another. (I'm 5'5" and use >24 inches when kneeling with my toes pointed to the rear.) If you kneel slantwise to stay out of the beds, you strain your back bending funny to reach the middle of the bed. Don't set dimensions on paper. Use your body as the standard of measure. Measure your reach: reach x 2 = maximum bed width (probably about 4 feet) Measure the distance from toe-tip to front of knee when you are kneeling = minimum path width.

I too am building a bed and found the following recipe in a book and would welcome some feedback: "For each 100 square feet of new garden space: Plant Tone 5-10 pounds Rock phosphate 5-10 pounds Greensand 5-10 pounds Gypsum 5-10 pounds Osmocote (8 months) 2 pounds Till all these ammendments plus organic matter (I presume this means compost?) into the soil, rake smooth and your bed is ready to be planted." Now some background on my soil. Soil test in 2009 indicated dense/heavy clay > 40%, pH 7.7-7.8, N Med/Low, P High, K Med/Low, Volatile Organic Content 1.5%, Humus Med/Low, Salts 92ppm. I laid down cardboard and layered peat moss and compost on top last fall. I already have an Acer Palmatum and plan to add Acer Truncatum (Shantung maple), Port orford lawsonia 'Blue Surprise' w Guardian Stock, and Thuja 'Emerald Green.' Also perennials and shrubs as yet to be determined. I notice moss growing in the bed and areas where water pools. I did a drainage test by digging a hole 1 feet deep and filling it with water. After one hour there was about 3 inches left. Filled a second time and after one hour there was about 1.5 inches left. Two more questions, will Doctor Earths 4-4-4 work as well as the Plant Tone and If I could purchase only 3 books and 2 magazine subscriptions to learn more about responsible gardening, which would you suggest?

The Lasagna or chicken/rabbit manure will work on all annuals(seeds),some perennial also. Black plastic to stop sunlight & water or clear plastic if it is hot in your area. The clear plastic will stop water & trap heat to dry & kill most plants. If you have Coastal Bahia grass,wild garlic (Allium vineale) Or wild dew berry (Rubus eubtus). Then move away & never look back. I have been fighting these weeds for 5 years & I have gained 480 square feet of beds, but can not make new beds for fighting the 3, which are tiring to invade my beds. My brother has tired to kill them in his garden with round-up. the grass & garlic come back from the root& the dewberries do not die at all. The only way you can tell the round-up was applied to dew berries is the new growth has misshaped leaves. Why don't I grow the dewberries for fruit? They have small fruit & bear small amounts, besides I have blackberries. I have tired covering the weeds with burlap bags & they come though anything less the 4 bags & grow in any crack they find. Okay, I am not moving so maybe I should not tell you to. Good Lucky- P.S. if you win the war Let us know what you did, Please.

bboy, we're talking vegetable garden here.....plants that have a high nutrient demand and that do grow best in amended, highly organic soils. And there is ample evidence that vegetables can thrive in virtually 100% organic 'soil', such as one would expect with using only compost. If the area in question has not been tended or actively gardened recently, it IS very likely organic matter is deficient and tilling in several inches of compost is going to help, not cause the problems you allude to, which tend to be idiosyncratic at best. One of the primary benefits of using organically sourced materials is that it IS pretty darn hard to overdo them. Because of the way they work - in tandem with soil organisms - it is virtually impossible to create "nutrient overload". And they tend to offer nutrients in very low levels anyway, so one would require VERY large quantities of anything, especially compost or other OM, to create "abnormally high levels". As to nutrients not "immediately utilized", that statement makes no sense. It takes time for organically derived nutrients to be converted into plant accessible forms - with almost no exceptions, nothing takes place immediately so the products cannot be utilized immediately. By virtue of these two principles, leaching of organic products and therefore pollution is very uncommon and is typically limited to runoff from large piles of manures.....hardly the case occurring in most home gardens. While Chalker-Scott sometimes has valuable things to offer, she also seems to have a very simplistic understanding of soils and soil biology. And organics. And I dislike her approach of stating everything in such no-uncertain-terms without offering any documentation or substantiation to support her theories. And she is not addressing cropping or the growing of harvested edibles, which is an entirely separate set of conditions. Interestingly, much of what she says is in direct contradiction to the Master Gardener publications she supposedly oversees. Here is a link that might be useful: WSU Master Gardener publications - vegetables