Patty -
The IDEAL would be to make layers, really thick ones, in the fall and let it do its thing all winter, then plant in the spring. My neighbor when I was a child did this - she'd pile the garden with leaves, hay and whatever, then just plant right through it in the spring.

In practice, you can plant immediately.

Just remember to keep watering, and keep adding stuff as you find it.

I think there is enough testimony on this site and others to not have to worry about the how it works. It works, thats all I care about.

Okay - I am totally interested and will buy the book on Lasagna Gardening this week, but there is nothing like talking to people who have been there....

It is spring in central NY and I want to plant perrienials and some flowering shrubs in an area that was once inhabited by 7 huge old pine trees and lots of shrubbery and brush (nothing that I could identify). That has all been removed but there are still pine tree stumps and roots and shrub bases and roots. I was hoping to start planting in a few weeks.

I can easily avoid, and don't need to plant over, the pine tree stumps but -- as I cover over the shrub roots and bases - doing the lasagna method, will I be able to plant above them so soon or do I have to wait until next spring?

Thanks for your input!

you can plant immediately, greek, if you spread some soil over the material to get things going, and when you dig holes for your perennials, set them in with some soil so there's no chance of burning roots

Bill

You can plant immediately. You don't need to wait for the layers to decompose. But in order to do this with success, you need to put your new plants into "pockets" filled with store bought dirt.

That's my story and I'm stickin' to it!

so basically unless you wanna worry about burning roots, you should do a lasagne garden and let it rot for 1 year? or is 1 winter season good enough?

No need to let it sit for a year in my limited experience- just put a pocket with enough soil to cover the rootball of the transplant on top. Keep it all moist. Away we go.

Can I put a lasagne garden ontop of 2 feet of garden soil that is already in my garden?

monkeyman, why would you want to go to the work of creating a lasagna garden on top of 2 feet of garden soil?

If you're just worried about weeds, cover the area with wet newspaper and then mulch. Punch holes where you want to plant.

Unless you have really crappy garden soil or no room for a separate compost pile, I agree with Bobkat13. I will say, though, that I just add most of my compostables directly to the garden as a mulch and let it compost in place. Was a lasagna garden, now I guess it's "no-till".

How can tomatoes grow in one of my compost bins? There's no actual soil at all! I'm just going with it.

I have heavy clay soil (a slight slope is the problem, topsoil washed away years ago) in SE Wisconsin. I have made 6 raised lasagna beds, and also do lasagna layering on my long garden patch each fall. Some I make in the fall for next spring, others I made and then planted into about 2 weeks later. Both ways worked fine. I used layers of fruit scraps, leaves, manure, and more fruit scraps (I bring home extras) with a little soil and compost on top, some of them had wood chips as the layer just above the cardboard. Last year I had most of my best tomatoes from the newest bed, and I planted into it just a week or two after I finished building it.

As to how it works, if you ever put down wood chips or whole leaves as mulch, haven't you noticed that weeds still grow in it even though you don't want them to? :-) Also, the combination of leaves and manure seems to work together really well. Mind you I try not to use really fresh manure, but just a few weeks of it cooking with its neighbors seems to do the trick. I have also observed oats growing right out of manure clumps. Also, unless you are planting big perennials, it takes a while for the roots to penetrate far, so a little compost or soil around the plant is enough. I don't do the pocket thing, I just put a thin layer on top. I love Lasagna Gardening, my regular garden dirt has become so much nicer in just 3 years. It does all magically combine, I have SO many worms. And you don't need to buy the book, I got it from my library.

Marcia, hosting a plant swap on May 20th (see WI forum)

I have built 7 lasagna beds in 2 years ,I am very impressed with the results. It started after I read Pat Lanza's book on Lasagna Gardening. I figured why not my first 2 years I had horrible results. This year my Tomatoes are 4 weeks old and are at least 5 feet. Everything is unbelievable I am not a genius just someone who loves to grow plants. I am new here and love reading your threads. This caught my attension and I had to respond. I start off my bed with a layer of wet newspaper, 2 inches of peat moss,4 inches of mulched leaves, 1 inch of vegtables from the open market composte pallet I chop , them up, 2 inches of peat moss, 1 inch of horse manure,more peat more and continue to build as high as 2 feet, I top it off with compost from the landfill. In-between the layers I put bonemeal. So far so good. Love your forum.

James

I wasn't sure at all, either, but time proved me wrong. I started a small bed (we have decent soil, but I wanted something more workable) last fall- October or November. I added stuff occasionally during the winter, but most of it at onset. I only started planting in it a week or so ago, but it was done way before that. There is very little (newspaper pieces-parts) that didn't decompose completely, but I just buried those and they'll be gone in no time.

Nice, fluffy compost & topsoil. Thank you little wormies & microherd!

Ok, I'm sold on trying the lasagna method. I'm wondering if one has to have a level area though. My front yard is fairly level but my backyard has a pretty good slope to it. Does that rule out making lasagna beds?

Any tips, input, or advice would be appreciated!

Does that rule out making lasagna beds?

No. Just keep everything a little more damp so it is heavy enought to stay in place. But then if the slope is as much as an Egyptian pyramid you might have a problem...

;)

i was thinking about doing lasagna gardening and the thought occured to me that i could just use what i have been composting and throw it into an unused bed and the stuff would compost on its own,therfore,eliminating the compost pile completly..does this make sense?....any thought?

Monkeyman, asks "Can you summ it up I don't have much time to read".

Have the person who changes your diapers, read it to you before you go to sleep.

>Have the person who changes your diapers, read it to you before you go to sleep.

That was particularly nasty. Or was it suppose to be some kind of joke?

Wayne

Wayne--I'm reasonably sure Maggie was trying to make a joke. She hasn't been posting here very long, but in several of the posts she has made, she has been an advocate for civility and for treating others as you'd want them to treat you, so I'm fairly certain she wouldn't post something like that unless she meant to be humorous.

A rule never take me or yourself that seriously. Does composting suck out your sense of humor.

The diaper changing remark was,to my mind,a dig at someone who asks for an explanation but doesn't want to invest the time to hear it.
"Knowledge is a dangerous thing;drink deeply or not at all from the spurious spring".

dbagman: Yes, that's fine.

You can also layer in anything extra like grass clippings, straw, leaves, and coffee grounds. Remember, there will be a lot of decrease in bulk as the stuff decomposes and settles. So adding more than you think the bed should need, is a good idea.

We're building up our beds now, for next spring, and lots of our compost pile is going in, even though it is only a few weeks old.

Oh yes, I remember the link to the huge treatise on soil biology posted in response to a question of a general nature. I think I would also have asked for the Cliff's Notes version. (Especially at this late date when the link is dead.)

Wayne

The link address has changed (see below). It's well worth browsing for the cool pictures, not to mention the info. You can also get a printed version. And don't miss the list of additional resources, including lots of curriculum materials and such things as the field guide to desert holes, at
http://soils.usda.gov/sqi/concepts/soil_biology/sbinfo.htm

A much shorter page on the soil food web is at the BLM site,
http://www.blm.gov/nstc/soil/foodweb/index.html

or you can google "soil food web" and peruse whatever grabs your interest.

Here is a link that might be useful: soil biology primer

as i recall the question was

"Can someone explain this to me? I know how lasagna gardening is done but I don't understand how it can work....."

i would not consider that a general question by any means, but very specific. i too thought it was rude to say gee i don't have time, could you take your time to explain to me?

oh , then come plant my plants for me

if i recall he also asked a bunch of other quetions. seemed to me he was tryin to ruffle someones feathers.

just my thoughts on the matter

thanks patty,i was concerened about the stuff breaking down properly,without the heat you would get from a pile.would it also be acceptable to use horse and chicken manure in the fall and still be able to plant in spring without burning the plants?

"i too thought it was rude to say gee i don't have time, could you take your time to explain to me?

oh , then come plant my plants for me"

Some people have slow connections; maybe they're still on dial up, maybe they don't have enough memory. Regardless, a 50 page document could take a LOT of time to go through. What's wrong with asking experts here for their take on something? If you don't want to respond, don't. But no need to be rude to someone who asks a question. :)

OK, on to the topic. Any thoughts about a lasagna method in an already planted garden in which plants are VERY close together? I have a wonderful compost pile, so I may stick with that, if that's the only practical way. Your thoughts?

my browser may be a bit slow
in fact it still has the topic listed as
How can lasagna gardening even work!?
perhaps the topic is something that CANNOT be summed up
in a picture & a paragragh

lynxe, you have no need of lasagna gardening if you have a wonderful compost pile. I think that's the best way to reap all the benefits of discarded OM. I think of lasagna gardening as ideal for starting new beds over grass, as it eliminates the necessity of digging up the turf.

lynxe, I tried lasagna gardening with the plants close and it worked but I needed lots of storebought dirt because everything was so close. Since I have hand problems planting so close didn't work for me for too long.

I now use a variety of lasagna gardening in 1/3 of my garden (compost in place -- pile it high all year and let it do its thing over the winter), annual cover crop for one-third of the space, and plants in 1/3. I rotate which plot is in what stage. The birds and worms are very happy and the vegetables are delicious and getting more so each year. The flowers and herbs and roses are thrilled too.

As merrygardens remarked, if you don't mind moving compost from your pile to your garden, sounds like you have no reason to change. But if you want to eliminate that step, or if, like me, your health prevents you from gardening that way, then lasagna gardening could be the way to go.

dbagman .... I don't know. I would probably use manures and not worry (I tend to not worry) but I don't know the official line on manures. I *do* use bunny manures straight in my lasagnas, but as far as cow and horse, I usually compost them through at least one hot cycle.

As far as weeds (I think you might have mentioned lack of heat and perhaps you're wondering about weeds?) I find that there are virtually no weeds in my lasagnas, but more importantly, any weeeds in them come right out because the material is so loose.

Ok, all the nasty nonsense aside, this has been a gread thread. I am trying it out for the first time this year in front of my house, roadside, because I want to plant in an area that seems to have become a parking lot for all the lawn services on our street. Hoping a garden in progress will deter them. I can't "weed" (~wink~) through 50 pages either, but Violet, thanks for your link. That seemed to supply a lot of info in a reasonable space. Cool site, too.
I am really excited to see what developes by spring. Even if it isn't great, it's got to be better than what I have.
Nancy

Thanks for the comments about the lasagna method versus using compost. I'm going to continue using my compost at this point; for any new beds though, I'm definitely going to try the lasagna method.

Nancy- maybe you could charge the services for parking- say a half load of leaves and a half load of grass per month or so? :)

I actually could get leaves and stuff from them...except all of my neighbors have lawn services that use chemicals. Scary stuff since we all have well water. Hmmm...
You know, I wouldn't care so much except they have dinged my mailbox, a planter and my fence many times. Or block my mailbox (roadside) so that the mailman can't leave my mail. Mind you, all of their clients have painted rocks along their yards so that no one can park there!! It's the kind of thing that is so annoying, but other than that, I have great neighbors, so I don't wnt to make waves.

we did our garden this year in the lasagna garden style for lack of a better word. We fixed it all and then we went right then a planted the plants and the seeds and you should see our garden! It's the best looking garden we've ever had and even with this lack of rain we've had we still have a pretty garden. It's not started bareing yet, but it's about to. We have a bell pepper hanging on a bush out there and then some small tomatoes as well. So it IS ok to go ahead and plant them when you get finished putting it in.

Can you summ it up I don't have much time to read.

DOH!!!

I think the point of these forums is the social back-and-forth we get when reading them. We could all just go elsewhere and read 50 page documents online or in books.. but, we'd be missing out on alot!!

i want to comment on the poster asking someone to sum it up, and the displeased responses it got. my hubby and kids are all exceptionally good readers: fast, with great comprehension. i, alas, am extremely slow. i've often wondered if it's a touch of dyslexia, ADD, whatever. the point is, it takes me MUCH longer to read and process information than anyone in my family, and i sometimes ask them to read something lengthy or technical and process it for me. i'm not stupid (i don't think!) and i'm not lazy. i'm probably as busy as everyone else. but i wouldn't be able to keep up with many of the things that interest me if reading original documents were my only option. i often feel guilty asking questions here, fearing someone will tell me to just go read up on it and stop posting questions already. i've read quite a bit on organic vegetable gardening through the years, but there's nothing like being able to get confusion immediately cleared up on these forums.

i don't want to appear self-righteous, but we don't all have equal abilities. i don't know monkeyman's situation, but i can understand his plea.

thanks to everyone who's helped me sift through information!

The problem I have with other people summing things up for you, is that you don't get the opportunity to form your own opinions.

Different people will develop different summaries from the same information, depending upon their point of view. When we let other people do our thinking for us, we end up losing our family members in the middle of Civil War over oil.

Though I agree not every one has the time to read 50 page document, and maybe some download speeds are slow... the response to me, sounded like: "Gee, I would rather have someone else tell me what they think, rather than learning something on my own."

The post was very similar to the recent post about soil formation. Where a poster now realizes they don't understand soil because they didn't pay attention in school, so a few paragraphs on the internet will sum up every thing that they should have learned in school about geology. And its all clear now...who needs school or learning when we have the internet... and generous people who will tell me what they think I need to know.

And maybe I am bit grumpy...I've been on crutches for four weeks... I have knee surgery on Monday, will be on crutches for six more weeks. So my gardening and composting this summer is on hold. I gave my tomato and pepper plants away, because there was no way I was going to be able to water them and harvest them. And I have been watching the garlic mustard grow in flower beds, and there is nothing I can do about it. (Well I guess I could hire someone to weed my beds, but I would be afraid that they would weed out something I am trying to grow.) So, yes I am grumpy... and when I am grumpy, I have a low tolerance for blissful ignorance.

And I think it was the two posts combined that set me on a "doh" tirade.

Get well, JPW! I remember being in a cast for 6 weeks, and on crutches for another week or so... carrying a plate of food was the biggest PITA!

joepyeweed,

i understand your point and i completely agree that there's nowhere near enough intelligent and open-minded processing of information. i've been in a state of perpetual grumpiness after the last two presidential elections. but still, it's hard to research every single thing you want to know about, especially if you're a slow reader / processer. i do think soil management is very important, but in the large scheme of things i'd rather see someone have that summed up for them than politics. (i know so many women who vote for whoever their husbands or fathers do. now THAT makes me grumpy.)

good luck with your knee surgery!

debbie

I don't understand how it works. I know there is a big difference between mineral-based soil, compost & uncomposted organic materials. Apparently, those differences don't matter all that much to a plant. This spring, we finally built raised beds w/ concrete blocks over my much-ammended but still poorly draining clay-based garden soil. I've added literally thousands of bags of leaves, grass, weeds, etc to my garden over the past 15 years resulting in a large worm population, but the soil was sooooo slow to drain & warm up, we had to build raised beds. Anyway, we filled the fourteen 15" deep beds with all kinds of oraganic materials this spring. I know it should have been done last fall, but I was too ill at the time. I dug out some ditches between some of the beds, filled the ditches with some wood chips I had on hand & used the soil to top some of the beds. I topped the remainder of the beds with finished compost. By the time I used up the wood chips & the compost, I had all of the beds topped with 1 - 2".
I just couldn't see how this was going to work. The truth is, the plants & seedlings are doing well. My romaine recently bolted & I pulled the plants out. The roots were well developed, about 6" long & the root hairs were clinging to little bits of uncomposted wood shavings, leaves & grass. Somehow, the plants are getting what they need out of this uncomposted stuff. I still don't know how it works, but it does.

This is the first year I planted in a lasagna bed without topping it off with compost or soil. I have run out of my 'extra' topsoil, and thought putting all my compost on top of composting things didn't seem the best use for it. It is a large bed, 4.5 ft X 25 ft. and about 15 inches tall.

To further convince anyone that plants don't need soil around them to grow, I have a massive crop of volunteer tomatoes, peppers, and melons growing themselves directly out of the lasagna garden. My layers include a lot of old produce, and those things seem to survive the lasagna scenario. I look forward to seeing what weird vegetables I get, I imagine many are the children of hybrids. I call the one type mystery melons. Got a nice watermelon and some cantaloupes last year out of similar volunteers.

I planted 6 kinds of tomatoes myself, about 25 total, and have so many volunteers I don't know where to put them. There are 3 spots where huge clusters of tomatoes are coming up like a bouquet. I don't have anywhere to plant them, and don't have the heart to pull them all out, so am just observing them in amazement. I am figuring the growing is helping to break up the lasagna layers, although I do try to pull a lot of the baby tomato plants out before they get so big I feel guilty about it.

Marcia

When I studied photosymthesis in college, it was water plus carbon dioxide plus sunlight equals sugar and oxygen. No soil in that equation. I guess all they roots need is something to hang onto.

I guess the minerals are dissolved in the water? I dunno.
Alls I know is that its working for me. Kinda of a leap of faith when you start.
:)

I'm with Doris, it's working for me, and I don't get why! My veggie garden went straight into a fresh lasagna bed that was built on top of my old veggie garden. (The plants never did well, and I think the soil was just lousy.) Everything is growing beautifully. I'm not going to question it, I'm just going to enjoy it.

I wonder if what you layer and how has anything to do with it. I've been told that you can layer and plant in fresh manure, but I'd be very afraid of burning roots. I used composted manure, as well as grass clippings, shredded leaves, and UCG. It will probably be better next year, but for now it's growing beautifully.

Emmie

I don't think I've posted on this forum for about 2 years but glad to be back!

I did a big lasagna bed on top of my native clay 2.5 years ago. I was so careful about it I was funny. It was about 2 feet high to start, the following spring it was about 8" high and through that summer - 2 summers ago it sank a bit more. Today it is even with the sidewalk and now I'm adding compost back on top and mulching a bit to add organics back in and bulk. The thing I love the very most about it is I don't even need a tool to dig in there, I can stick my hands straight in and move soil around, but it still holds moisture. Great great stuff. I used giant bagas of shredded paper from the office as a big part of my bulk plus followed somebody's online recipe. The only thing I would not do again is put 4" of peat all in 1 layer. It caked up and was clumpy for the first 2 years. I might use peat again but I would spread it thinly between layers. Now I've started redoing every bed in my yard the same way, one or 2 a year. Gonna take a few to get thru this but the result is nice to work in.

I built a straw bale garden last year and had a totally amazing experience. Just awesome. I will never plant tomatoes in soil again - no need. No weeding, no bending, no bugs or diseases. It was great.

Currently I do what I believe is called in genteel circles 'sheet composting'. I bury my kitchen scraps directly in the garden here and there and just rotate which garden I'm using. During winter when its no fun to make the walk across the yard to get to the compost bin, I dump non-rodent attracting kitchen scraps directly on my gardens and let them freeze, thaw and decompose. Great source of nitrogen added right back on top of the soil. There is nothing left by spring but the plants have all gotten a percolated boost of newly decomposed food. You can tell the tops of the beds are all black and crumbly from the compost too. Coffee and filters are good for this. Part of my spring clean up is raking away the uncomposted filters and hauling them over to the compost pile. I haven't fertilized anything but bulbs in a couple years.

I have never been scientific about my compost bins, sometimes they are all browns like in fall, sometimes they are all greens - like garden clean up or food scraps. It all breaks down in the end. I do make a point of throwing some sticks and branches in there which aerates for you. I pick out whats left and toss them back in the bin when I use the compost. I also got a stick compost pile going in one part of my yard. A tree had blown over and left a big hole in the ground. I started throwing my sticks in there and leaves in the fall got blown in. It began to sink as it slowly decomposed. I threw in about 40 lbs of horse manure on top to speed it up. Aha! Dirt is on the way. Someday a few years from now I will have the most amazing planting area for some special shrub or tree.

I don't rake or blow leaves anymore, I set my mulching lawnmower at a high setting and mow the lawn about every 4 -5 days in the fall and spread a bit of lime on top. The leaves are gone so fast its amazing. The quality of our grass has gone from total thin sparse junk to thick green and healthy with no added chemical fertilizer - well I do have deep core aeration done a minimum of once a year and sometimes spring and fall. This year for the first time I had a few yards of Sweet Peet delivered and hand broadcast it over the aerated lawn. gone in about 2 weeks completely and the lawn looks good even in our drought.

I have a few gripes and chief among them is the new (to me) practice of selling shredded, dyed pallets as hardwood mulch. I have gotten taken 2 times with this garbage and the next time I buy mulch I'm going to have to see a sample before I buy it, or they are going to get my credit card reversed. Our local garden center had nice 'hardwood' mulch in the sample bins indoors, then they delivered this c _ _ p to my house. Its fluffy at first, but it packs hard and crusty and sheds water. Lord knows what kinds of chemicals are in it. Nobody at the garden center can tell me if this is pine, or if it was treated wood. All I know is..... I used to not shop at the Home Despot, but they are selling bags of guaranteed shredded hardwood BARK for $2.99 and it will be worth my while to go get that instead of shredded pallets. If it is pine wood - whats that doing to my already acid soil pH ? ARRRHGG

Ah well, back to feeding the worms

I heard it's better NOT to tie up tomatoes in a Lasagna Garden, But just let the plants touch the floor.
It keeps a certain "nutrient" that the wind cannot blow off a tie upright tomato plant, that grows outside the tomato plant?

What do you guys do?

There was a study once that showed that letting tomatoes sprawl led to a loss of tomatoes due to rot but an increase due to the fact that every place the tomato plant touched down it sprouted roots. According to that study, the net effect was an overall increase in production.