Thanks...Well, ended up doing my own experiment after all my inquiries and research because I didn't have nearly enough ingredients to do the layers needed. I appreciate the input and clarifications though. :) I planted the front of my house where we had old overgrown shrubs removed (but stumps were left underground - what fun to work with). Of course I did all this planting up to about a week ago and then decided to lasagna style around the plantings (no walkway/paths - another fun challenge). So, I ended up doing wet newspaper layers around plants and over entire garden area, very sparse layer of old, dried out crabapple leaves, layer of compost with earthworms, layer of starbucks coffee grounds, layer of agway composted manure and then a layer of agway natural cedar mulch. This is all on a slope that I basically destroyed over the course of the summer by pre-weeding and causing newbie 101 gardening mistake of erosion waiting to happen. I only plan to add one more plant to this area and will just see how the soil underneath looks next year. I plan to water the area I lasagna'd so it won't dry out as it's on the south facing side of our house and gets lots of hot sun. Another thing I did was plant whatever my mom and I liked and now get to try to water what likes water and leave others to dry out partially (lavender). So, I planted: mugo pine-mops, 2 sets of monarda, lavender, blue fescue, silver mound-artemesia, hardy hibiscus, cheddar pinks, 2 whooly creeping thyme that are already on their way out, and today will add the dragonhead we just had to get after going to a talk at unconoonuk mt nursery the other weekend and loving the look of the plant. It will be interesting to see what makes it for the season/winter and into next year. If I don't over water them it will be amazing as I am one of those types and my mom is an underwaterer. Actually I'm working on the just-right watering type of gardener. This summer just had to be a scorcher with humidity to make it even more confusing. :) Sorry for the babble! :)

witeowl Be careful with the worms, there is a difference between composting and vermiculture, which is using worms. The red wigglers, which are the composting worms, eat through stuff very well, but shouldn't be released into the environment in mass. If you buy those, it is best to use a vermiculture system instead of a standard compost system like a bin or trash can. It is very annoying in a compost system to keep dig through all the finished compost trying to find your worms so you don't have to buy more. Plus, with traditional compost the worms aren't really necessary, but worms out of the garden added when it is just about finished causes the population to flourish in the bin and then continue to flourish in the garden. They are more there to get a good aerating worm population growing than anything to do with the actually compost. The worms from the garden are not good composters usually, they are most likely nightcrawlers as opposed to the reg wigglers for composting. The worms will show up when you add your compost to the soil, but why not add them directly when you add the compost. Oh, and if you do this, near seedlings, protect them in some way. Robins will show up in droves to start grabbing the worms and I have had them tear apart some seedling trying to dig up worms. The pretty much do that where ever I add compost even if it had worms in it or not as worms are really attracted to compost. Also, red wigglers I have found don't tolerate heat or freezing as they do not bury themselves as deep as "native" nightcrawlers do since they are surface feeders.

Ya the subject of C:N confuses a lot of people. Think in terms of getting a warm bath. How much hot and cold water to add together to get warm depends on how 'hot' hot is and how 'cold' cold is and the volume of each. Sure it can be mathematically complicated but most of us figure it out pretty darn quick. And don't get hung up on something just being called a green or a brown. Something at 25:1 is a green but so is something at 8:1. They are both greens but one is a much stronger green and would require more (volume wise) of a weak brown (40:1) than a strong brown (200:1) to get a targeted ratio. I often use the terms "weak brown" or "weak green" when discussing composting, somehow people grasp that better than a black or white definition. But without exception everyone eventually understands "it" after a while. Lloyd

I meant wood shavings (which is usually put in horse bedding), has a C:N of 400:1. Here's the math i came up with: Idea is a 30:1 Carbon/Nitrogen ratio (Browns:Greens) Determine the C:N ratio of the Browns and Greens you will be adding. There are many charts online that give the C:N ratio of commonly composted items. Browns Greens C1:N1 C2:N2 Divide the C by 30 for Browns and multiple N by 30 for Greens N1 = C1/30 C2 = N2*30 Divide those 2 numbers NUMBER = C2/N1 Multiply C by the number for Browns and divide the N by the number for Greens High Carbon High Nitrogen C1*NUMBER N2/NUMBER -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Example: Wood Chips Urea 400:1 1:46 N needed to make a 30:1 ratio for Wood Chips(N1) = 400/30 13.3 C needed to make a 30:1 ratio for Urea(C2) = 46*30 1380 NUMBER = C2/N1 NUMBER = 1380/13.3 NUMBER = 103.8 C1*NUMBER 400/103.8 = 3.9 3.9 lbs of Wood chips to 1 lb or Urea will balance out the 400:1(Wood Chips/Browns) and 1:46(Urea/Greens) to 30:1 -or- .26 lbs of Urea to every 1 lb of Wood chips. (1 divided by 3.9) -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-