How thick was that "lasagna"? It may be decomposed to no more than a thin mulch by now. You have to continually replenish those things.

Instead of everyday watering, try a thorough soaking less often. One of the best ways to water is with a soaker hose, run very slowly for several hours.

As I recall the bed was somewhere between 12-24 inches high. It has cooked down to about 6 inches. What can I use to replenish the bed? I don't want to use any more grass because I think that might be the major cause for most of my problems.

I'll definately give the soaker hose a try. Would you suggest doing it in the morning or evenings or does it matter?

g'day exhausted,

do you mulch at all? do you add compostable or composed material on an ongoing basis? we mulch to app' 8"s thick on average 6"s.

see our presentation of garden building, we are in drought and only water when the plants show signs of distress, app' once a week. we do use our second hand kitchen water as well as my wee water in the gardens.

len

Here is a link that might be useful: lens straw bale garden

Yes, I do mulch. I use left over dried leaves from last fall. Even that does not give my plants a fighting chance. I water the plants first and then I spread the leaves around the base of the plant. What other moisture retaining materials would you suggest that I mulch with since my supply of leaves is running low.

Wow, you mulch to approximately 6-8 inches? That's a lot, but I will give it a try. I didn't think that I needed that much. Most of the times, I bury kitchen scraps in the bed in no particular place. I think I will try burying all that stuff just at the roots of the plants. Can't hurt, right?

That's a great looking site you have there. You really do know how to conserve your resources. I'll have to look into using second hand kitchen water too.

yes utilise all second hand water from the house. we do. collect rainwater as well not in drums/barrels get a rinwater tank up around the 22k/litre size, be self sufficient in water, using laundry or shower water for flushing solids only in the toilet save oodles of fresh water, we don't flush urine but about once a day using second hand water.

not sure leaf mulch will do a top job try sourcing mulch hay or straw and use it 6"to 8" thick, works for us. get whatever you can cheaply or easily enough, for us, that is sugar cane mulch made from the tops of cane. spoilt lucerne hay hard to get at an affordable price because in times of drought no rain the cause the hay to spoil. have used unspoilt pasture grass hay, oh! and the gardens aren't over run with weeds. the mulch hays also provide wider range of nutrients than maybe would leaves or straw.

len

Daily watering leads to shallow root systems, which leads to fast wilting ... break the cycle by deep watering.

With the soaker hose, run it slowly for several hours until the soil is wet at least 6 to 9 inches. Use a moisture meter.

Repeat as needed, every few days. It will take the plants a while to grow a root system to match the depth of the moist soil, but you should be able to water every third or fourth day quite soon.

Keep piling on the dry stuff, layered with whatever, because high moisture will make the layers break down nicely.

I don't know about your area of GA but here in SW FL the rootknot nematodes go crazy about now and the results look like the ground is dry when in fact the trouble is these horrible creatures attacking the roots of my poor okra plants.

Gardenlen, I know I definately need to mulch with something else, but not sure where to get hay or straw in this town. Will have to inquiere around.

Lazygarden, one of my main concern is using too much (good)water, but none the less i will try the soaker hose.

I think a better question for me to ask everyone is where did I go wrong with this lasagne garden. From what I heard before, it's the best thing since sliced bread. I must admit that it did save me a ton of cash since I was working with a 50 foot diameter plot.

I am currently working on making 2 more lasagne garden, so it's important to know where I went wrong.

You did not necessarily 'go wrong.' you said you are new to gardening. most of us had various levels of successess and many failures in our early years of gardening. live and learn. even the best and most experienced gardeners and farmers have good and bad years, good and bad crops, as the weather and other circumstances will always throw you a curve.
you have gotten some good advice here. the deeper mulch, the deeper watering routines. conserving valuable resources. the lasagna garden is still new, and it will improve over time as organic matter (OM) is added, and more importantly, gets incorporated into the soil by soil organisms and microbes. You are smart to be so observant and ask lots of questions before creating your next lasagna bed. But I would advise you to go for it. Another hint, keep a garden journal, i just buy a cheap notebook, and it's fun to make notes, observations, to do lists, etc. Include pics if you can. It is really enlightening when you read back in 2 yrs how much you and your garden have grown.
happy gardening.

@lousianagal, for sure I am still learning. Sometimes mother nature has a way of throwing you a curve ball. Last fall I was feeling so confident about my accomplishments with the garden. Fast forward 7 months or so and now I am kicking myself.

Anyone else having problems with keeping the lasagne bed moist or is it just me? Must be a newbie problem for sure.

One of two things is happening, the water is running off this Lasagna Bed and not getting down deep, or that daily watering is not enoght to get the water into the bed deep enough. How long are you watering this bed every day?
Getting enough water into any garden bed is not just a newbie problem since people that have been gardening many years sometimes have the same problem.

Here is a link that might be useful: Lasagna Gardening 101

@kimmsr, how insightful. You are exactly right, I have observed the water running off. I think I layered with too much grass. So now, I have to reverse it and don't exactly know how to do that.

So now, I am spending time with each individual plant for the time being removing the excess grass that has accumulated at the base of each plant. (I'll do the rest of the areas in the fall, when I have plenty supply of fallen autumn leaves).

And thanks for the link. I found a tip or two there. Here's my favorite tip:

"I prepare my site by installing water jugs buried up to their shoulders between where every two plants will be. A pin hole in the sides facing the plants should let enough seep out to keep up consistent watering."

Here's another one:
"As the plants grow during the summer, continue covering with the compost enriched mixture until crowns are four inches deep. In the fall, cover the entire bed with a blanket of eight to ten inches of chopped leaves or other organic mulch. Each spring, feed the bed compost enriched with manure."

I wish I had an excess of mature manure. I think that might do the trick. I got a bag from Lowes recently so in the next few days I will be feeding the roots and not the complete bed yet.

Thank you so much!

over here we have produce agencies i think called feed stores over there? they sell all manner of stock food etc.,. etc.,. plus stuff for gardening (usually cheaper than nurseries), so we buy our s/c mulch from them. but check bulletin boards at shopping centres, i'm not sure how far from rural areas you are? but there is usually someplace to buy spoilt hay from.

look in local papers if you get them over there those freebies that get delivered about weekly. we have a rural paper that can be bought in city agencies check in there if you can source one. our s/c mulch comes from up to 200 kilometers away. that is why we pay $8AUD when rural folk who live near the farms only pay $3AUD.

next time you go for a drive in the country have a look around. we have at times raked slashed grass (app12" high stuff) form a local parkland area, have also asked permission to rake and collect slashed grass from someones paddock. if nothing else us humans are resourcefull. like i said earlier use whatever you can get, use enough and there will be no doomsday stuff involved.

if we hadn't or didn't do it we wouldn't suggest it, never had a failure yet and spend almost no time weeding.

keep us informed.

len

Here is a link that might be useful: lens garden page

Perhaps it is somehow related to the WAY in which your lasagna was layered vs. what the ingredients were? I only say this because when I first starting using UCGs (Used Coffee Grounds)I layered them on top of my flower bed like a mulch. It looked beautiful and smelled even better. . until it dried a bit and turned into a slab that repelled the very water I thought it would help retain. Ever since then I smoosh the UCGs with a pitchfork or shovel before using (they look like hockey pucks if you get them from Starbucks), and mix them in a bit instead of just "plopping them on top" as my DH says. Hope this helps. Whatever you do don't give up on gardening and if you do throw in the towel be sure to aim for the compost pile :)

@len, I live in a semi-rural part of Georgia. I'll have to find out where there is a feed store around here. I love a bargain.

@compostkate, I also found out (the hard way) that the secret to lasagne gardening is not so much the layering as the mixing. And another thing I learned from this experience that too much of a good thing (grass) is a bad thing. You don't want to use too much of it at one time. It's best to use it sparingly and at different times. In other words, don't pile it all on at the same time.

Now if someone could just direct me to something that I can add to the garden that really going to add moisture to the mix. This would make my gardening life a little bit easier.

Hey Kate, seems like composing is your area of expertise. What else would you suggest that I add to this lasagne bed besides towels. LOL!

Spoiled hay is a useless product that can only be used as garden mulch or tossed into a landfill, it has no real value so you should not ever have to pay real money for spoiled hay. Spoiled hay cannot be used for feed, it would kill the animal, and spoiled hay cannot be used for bedding because the animal bedded would want to eat it and that could kill that animal.
Spoiled hay is something that must be gotten rid of.

A soaker hose UNDER the layers will avoid the runoff problem.

Mixing the grass into the other layers a bit will minimize the runoff.

And, watering from a watering can with a bit of dish soap added to the water will break the surface tension on the top layer and improve absorption.

... watering from a watering can with a bit of dish soap added to the water will break the surface tension on the top layer and improve absorption.

I didn't know this. I am definately going to try them. Thanks for that tip!

If it is repelling water, soapy water can work wonders. Just mix a little soap into a bucket of water and pour over the area. I've bought shredded wood much that repelled water like that and one dump of soapy water cured the problem.

I have to say that the lasagna beds that I have made hold moisture better than any other areas of my yard, for years. Then I replenish with compost and organic mulches.I "lasagna-ed" two new tomato beds that we bulit last year. They are mulched with leaves and holding water extremely well.

Another suggestion because you said you are new to gardening. Since you live in a hot climate, consider growing plants that are drought tolerant if you're growing flowers. I get frustrated as hell with plants that are water hogs. My established hydrangeas wimp out and wilt every afternoon when the sun hits them around 3. They're just hot, not dry. I kind of wilt then, too. They just have to suck it up and tolerate it. When temps start to drop in the evening they perk right up.
{{gwi:295730}}

I suggest that you get a moisture meter as suggested above. They cost about $5 or $6 at Home Depot. Your plants might be wilting just because they're hot. Or they can wilt and turn yellow from too much water, too. It's easier to kill a plant by over watering than to kill it with too little.

Karen