rake them back.. and do it right ...

rake to one side.. put down paper.. rake back..etc ... it shouldnt take all that long ...

i would have used round up .. and the paper issue would have been moot ...since everything would have been dead ...

but if you dont smother the live stuff there.. it will be growing thru your layers.. just about as fast as you can lay it down ...

ken

My understanding of lasagna gardening is that very, very few people really do it. Most people who are saying they are doing lasagna beds are really doing sheet composting. The difference is that in lasagna gardening the organic layers are deep enough that plants can grow in those layers without reaching into the underlying soil. To do that takes about two feet of leaves, cardboard and everything else to break down to less than a foot.

Sheet composting is putting stuff on top of the ground with the idea that it will naturally mix with the top layer of soil, and that is what is planted in. The layers usually aren't thick enough to smother grass or other tenacious plants, so newspaper or cardboard are part of the layers. Under many circumstances the mixing doesn't occur, so there is a thin layer of organic matter on top of impenetrable soil. In my gardens I know it doesn't mix because the native soil is largely rock. The only ways of dealing with that are either serious raised beds or digging up the rocks.

I have had great luck using only oak leaves, but in very deep layers. Once planting time arrives, pull back the leaves and see what is left. It's possible there will still be weeds left to pull, but I don't think newspaper would have done any better than lots of leaves and other stuff.

Martha

mad-gallica makes an interesting point about the depth of a lasagna bed. I always start with wet newspapers and I think they are essential to smothering weeds and grass. I start out building a bed right on top of old, thick sod which contains a lot of weeds. I need to have a deep bed otherwise some of the weeds come up through (usually a weed with runner roots that is growing outside the bed and sending runners into the bed). My first bed was built over a summer of gathering ingredients the first year we moved here and the house was being renovated. I only had time to work on a bed, not actually garden. It condensed by about half over the winter and got topped with composted horse manure that was practically dirt in the spring. It continued to sink over the years but I've used the beds for vegetables, not perennials. I assume they will settle in as the bed matures. If your goal includes smothering existing weeds/grass, then I think you need to put down the newspaper. I have a pile of old grass clippings and chopped leaves that occasionally sprouts a weed. If you just need to build some good compost and soil, then it might be fine as it. What I also want to point out is that I needed to dig a trench around the beds. Just enough angle and depth to discourage runner weeds from growing into the bed. They still try. I still need to weed but the trench also provides a gap for the lawn mower wheels. I use an edging spade or spading shovel to cut the trench. This has greatly reduced the amount of time I spend keeping the edge of the beds neat but every spring I do have to spend a lot of time re-cutting the edges. I have quack grass and creeping jenny that cause most of the problems. If you don't have runner weeds, you might not need the trench. What also reduced edge weeding around one circular bed was to edge it with pavers so the mower wheels can get close to the bed. Grass still tries to grow between the blocks but I no longer have a problem with the lawn invading the bed in full force.