hi everyone, hopefully there's someone still reading this... I just made my first lasagna bed last fall. What I found was that first, it was super easy, and second - it was SO EASY! And it looks like I just added a foot of growing medium where there was previously just grass! I really did not like the idea of pulling up sod, shaking out the dirt, and worring about microrganisims leaving before I planted. It's a lot of work, which, for food, work is just part of the process. But after I observed a garden at a Permaculture class that was growing melons and squash after being lawn just months before with no tilling or weeding, I knew I needed to try this. I still haven't seen my bed yet since I completed it last fall, as we still have feet of snow on the ground and it's mid-april now. But before the snow fell, my garden included a lot of great material, none of it cost me a penny and all came from my area. What helped me was looking in a composting book for lists of bulkly material that could be composted. There were a lot of good ideas. The layers were as such, from bottom to top: newspapers spent barley malt from a local brewery chunky mostly finished compost grass clippings rotted manure soil from a previously dug out pond autumn leaves Now that I've been reading more, I think that I would have put in some sand from our sand pit down the road to help with drainage. I strongly believe there is no "right" way to make this concept work. There are many paths leading from many places to accomplish your goal with what you have for initiative, brains, and mulch materials. I am so happy to be able to find this out right when I needed it most. What I didn't like was the idea of going to the store to buy 50 bales of peat moss!!! I already purchase one bale for starting seedlings. I like how people are using spoiled hay, which in many places, is very abundant. I don't believe that a good bed requires peat moss; nor do I think it's a bad thing to use it. I just don't like the idea of paying for it and depleating a very very slow-growing resource when there are many other materials to try out first. I look forward to getting a bunch of the spoiled hay this spring. That is if we ever see a day without snow here in Maine... My question is: has anyone used lasagna gardening for beds in a large greenhouse? Would love to hear about it!

Melanie, I have a hoop house but don't do lasagna gardening. (I also don't feel any special levity, frivolity, offhandedness - or much of anything else today, after all these weeks of winter.) My hoop house won't be set up for a few more weeks (can I believe that!) so it is just a couple of raised (frozen) beds with hoops, right now. Despite not being in production this winter, I have been out there now-and-then prepping the soil - sorta. There were a couple of thaws, the piles of snow melted and I dug a few holes for the compostables that had piled up and were mostly frozen in a bucket near the backdoor. This is what I've done a number of years now - bury compostables in those 2 beds. The soil is very fertile. The material is mostly straight out of the kitchen and we generate quite a lot of vegetable and fruit peelings. Thru the spring and the entire growing season, those beds will see lots of use. I will grow things just to dig and transplant out into the open garden. A lot of lettuce and a few green onions and such will come out of that hoop house, early. Also, things like Chinese cabbage will stay in there for their full life-cycle. After the weather really heats up and the plastic is pulled off, those beds will continue as home for Cucurbits that need a longer season than what the outdoors usually affords. The hoop house is in the most protected location in my yard. It is very sunny and this amounts to a kind of "tropical" demand on that soil. Would a lasagna approach work? Sure, I think so. But, there's so much going on thru the extended growing season, I find it better not to use my "sheet composting" on those 2 beds . . . just what works for me. Steve

Here is one recipe. Doing a Google search came up with many recipes. Lasagne Alla Bolognese Recipe courtesy Gabriele Corcos and Debi Mazar http://www.cookingchanneltv.com/recipes/debi-mazar-and-gabriele-corcos/lasagne-alla-bolognese.html 8 Servings Butter, for the pan 1/2 batch Bolognese Sauce, recipe follows 1 1/2 (9-ounce) boxes no-boil lasagne noodles Besciamella, recipe follows 3/4 cup grated Parmesan, plus more for serving Extra-virgin olive oil, for serving BOLOGNESE SAUCE: 5 tablespoons olive oil 1 red onion, medium chop 3 carrots, medium chop 3 celery stalks, medium chop 5 ounces pancetta, cut into small cubes 1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes 2 handfuls fresh flat-leaf parsley, leaves picked and chopped 1 pound ground beef 1 pound ground pork 1 pound ground veal 1 cup red wine 3 (28-ounce) cans pelati tomatoes* Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper 1 cup whole milk BESCIAMELLA: 1/2 cup butter 1/2 cup all-purpose flour 4 1/2 cups whole milk Pinch freshly grated nutmeg Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Butter the lasagne pan well and add a very thin layer of meat sauce. Add the first layer of lasagne noodles and in order, cover with meat sauce, about 3 ladles besciamella, and a generous sprinkle of Parmesan cheese. Repeat the same process until you reach the top of the dish. Make sure the lasagne noodles are soaking into the sauce. When done layering the ingredients, top the lasagne with a final ladle of meat sauce and some besciamella, add a few thin slices of butter and finish with some grated Parmesan. Bake for about 30 minutes. Heat a broiler. When your fantastic lasagne alla bolognese is cooked, give it a nice crisp top by broiling it for about 5 minutes. Always serve this dish with extra-virgin olive oil and some grated parmesan, to taste. Bolognese Sauce: Sauté the onion, carrots, and celery in about 5 tablespoons olive oil in a large rondeau until soft. Add the pancetta to the soffritto (onion mixture). Cook on a medium-high flame for about 7 to 10 minutes, then add the meat; break it up well with a wooden spoon. Cook's Note: You can jack up the heat a bit, and keep stirring until all the ground meat is browned. Add the red pepper flakes and the parsley and cook for just 1 minute. Add the wine now and cook until the alcohol is completely evaporated, scraping up the browned bits on the bottom of the pan. Pulse the tomatoes smooth in a food processor and add them to the meat, season generously with salt and pepper, lower the flame to medium and cook for about 2 1/2 hours, stirring occasionally. Finish the sauce by adding the whole milk, stir well and set aside, to cool off. Besciamella: Melt the 1/2 cup butter in a pan over medium heat. Stir in the flour with a wooden spoon. Cook's Note: This is an important moment, as you have to slowly toast the flour without burning it. This will help you lose the floury taste. Warm up the milk and gradually ladle into the pot with the butter-flour mixture, whisking constantly while bringing the mixture to a boil. Reduce the heat, and simmer for about 15 minutes. Season the sauce with freshly grated nutmeg, salt, and pepper. NotesBecause you are working with pasta that does not require boiling, you have to make sure that there are no pieces of lasagne sticking out of the sauce because they won't cook. When you decide to tap into your reserve of frozen lasagne, keep in mind you need to thaw the frozen lasagne overnight before reheating. Pelati tomatoes are whole canned tomatoes. If the sauce is too thick, add a little more milk, if too runny, return to the heat and add a pat of butter mixed with an equal amount of all-purpose flour. The most important thing though is: besciamella should not taste floury. If you think your sauce is ready, but you can spot a hint of "flouriness" when you taste it, think again, and keep on cooking it for a few minutes more.

Okay. Rain and sneezles killed my afternoon. I did go through my pantry, refill my flour bin and salt grinders, found dark brown sugar bought three times, but durum none. Plenty of 00. Found my mixing bowls that some helpful soul hid in the wrong place. I took out five eggs to warm up and started the dishwasher. Then crawled into nap with blankie position per rain. So, come time to make dinner, I thought, given the encouragement from Sleevendog's misunderstood then reunderstood prodding, I should at least get out the pasta machine. Cutter missing? No in a plain box in the drawer. And then remembered one of my issues. My beautiful, personal kitchen doesn't have a place to clamp the machine down! I don't remember what I did when I first tried it a few years ago, but it was on the sink counter, which is probably too low for my cranking comfort as well. Inspiration hit! I have that lovely Boos board that I don't really have much use for. It's heavy enough to counterbalance the machine, and hang off the edge enough for the clamp. When I started cranking, it walked. Easily solved by scooching a silicone mat underneath. At the very end, enough stay flour and gotten under to make it move a little, but otherwise very good. But what recipe? My old very detailed and a mess to follow but very good pasta recipe calls for oil and salt as well as the flour and eggs. Annie's recipe--the same as Islay's with more commentary, and pretty close to Lars's--sounded straightforward and had better instructions for the machine. The recipe that came with the machine seemed less so, but I don't remember why. One thing I like about the one egg to 100 g flour recipe (or half the weight of egg and water as weight of flour) is it's more like baking recipes, which I know so much better. I know how to bake bread by volume, but there's a lot of experience behind it. By scale makes a new recipe so much easier to follow. None of the "feels right" part. So I did that. Used my Danish dough whisk rather than a fork to start the mixing. With none of the optional durum, I emptied the 00 canister and added about 50g of AP rather than opening a new bag. La-di-dah, it's flour. :) I'm going to try Lars's three flours for pasta that's more of a hero of the dish. Having found the cutter. :) I didn't really do the wetter dough because I was going to use the machine, but my hand slipped adding the water (it's only about 20 g out of 250 to fill out the eggs). I was about 10 g heavy. So I figured no problem. I'll just be generous with the flour on the board. The dough was a different texture than I'm used to. Less elastic and not as smooth. I assume from the 00 flour. I did knead it, but not for a long time, and I did rest it, but not for a long time. My machine goes from 1-9, and the instructions go from 0-6. I followed the directions to put it through and fold a few times on the bottom number, then once, no fold, through each number up. I thought the number 7 level was a nice thinness. Lasagna should have some tooth and body. It's thin, but not transparent. I just floured it and loosely folded and stacked in a container. The lasagna I'm making is something of an ordeal. It's supposed to pour again tomorrow, but rain willing, I'll make it then. I've been too chicken to check the pumpkin. I have a couple of pie pumpkins I can use if it's dead. :) I now have pasta! I don't know if it's enough. If not, I'll probably just weave in some dry, but if I'm very ambitious I could try another batch. For cheap and basic, my little machine came through. But it squeaks. :) Thank-you all! I couldn't have done it without you!