One of the most persistant of gardening myths is that clay soils are somehow uniformly "bad" - that is not really true. Yes, they may be somewhat difficult to work with (until you know the tricks!) but they tend to be nutrient-rich, retain moisture in dry times and limit the amount of leaching of soluble plant nutrients like nitrogen and potassium due to rain or irrigation. The primary trick with clay soils is to never attempt to dig deep planting holes -- all you will create is a great deal of work for yourself and a bathtub or bucket for your plants with the next heavy rain. Dig wide but very shallow planting holes and plant high. Use whatever amendments you like to mix with the dug soil to mound up to the top of the rootball. Easy peasy! Just scrape/rake the wood mulch away enough to remove the weed cloth underneath, then work it back into the areas you wish to improve. And it never hurts to add whatever other organic matter you have at hand. Using compost as a mulch less than 3 inches thick is pretty much a waste of time and money as the material breaks down and disappears pretty rapidly. 3-4" of compost applied this fall or winter should result in some pretty decent soil come spring. FWIW, any organic material is going to break down and shrink over time so any lasagna method intended to "create" 6-8 inches of soil is going to require at least 12-18" of ingredient material to begin with. And that is simply too much stuff to pile around existing plants, careful or not. Improving soil conditions is not an overnight situation and even less so if working around existing plantings. This is not what the lasagna method was intended for. But by applying organic matter in the form of mulch over a period of growing seasons you will develop a loose, fluffy, well-draining and very fertile soil condition over time. Always keep any mulch well away from trunks of trees or the woody stems of any shrubs to prevent rot and to discourage hiding places for winter feeding critters like rabbits or voles.

Lindrusso, I agree, lasagna gardening is not foolishness. I started a herb bed two years ago using the lasagna method, and enlarged it this past winter, using nothing but cardboard, leaves, used coffee grounds (UCGs are a great green, BTW!) and soil. (I know, most lasagna gardening gurus say you don't need soil, but it worked for me). I let the leaves and UCGs sit and decompose over the winter, covered with burlap, stapled into the ground with those big garden staples to keep it all from blowing away. Then in the spring I topped it all off with garden soil, and planted tomatoes. I dug down through the decomposed cardboard to plant the tomatoes, and they grew like crazy! A real jungle, it was awesome. I am never going to till another garden bed. I've never used peat in a lasagna bed, and I only put kitchen wastes into my compost bin. You should definitely dig and bury the kitchen scraps to keep the critters at bay. I believe that burying kitchen scraps in existing beds is called trench composting. You mighty try googling that phrase. So, to sum up my responses to your questions....... 1. I am very interested in being able to use scraps from the kitchen. I have read that many folks compost right in the beds rather than (or in addition to) having a compost heap. If I do this, can I just scatter the kitchen scraps right on top of the bed or do I need to cover the scraps each time to prevent pests, flies, etc.? Don't scatter, bury. 2. If I do need to cover kitchen scraps, I would use brown material, right? Do you all keep a supply of brown material at hand for tossing on the pile when you need to cover things like kitchen scraps? Like maybe a large trash can filled with leaves or something? When I bury the kitchen wastes in my compost pile, I almost always top them with a layer of browns, usually shredded paper, of which I have many, many bags. 3. After I add a layer of something like hay or straw, do I need to top off with something with a little weight to hold it in place? Seems to me stuff like that would blow away! Burlap and staples works well to keep stuff from getting blown away. 4. What sorts of things do you all use as the very top layer when planting in the spring? I've read that grass clippings can be used - this appeals to me as this is the most readily available item because we have a large lawn and it's free - best of all. I use soil. And I don't mulch with anything right now, but I plan to start mulching next year with shredded leaves. When I used grass clippings, I too ended up with grass growing in the bed. 5. If I use things like corn husks or plant refuse (non-diseased, not weeds) - can I just throw them in and leave them on top or do I need to cover or do anything else to them? I would bury plant refuse just like I do the kitchen scraps. 6. Is there anything in the kitchen that is particularly bad for attracting pests (besides the obvious no-nos like meats, etc.)? By the time I get around to composting my kitchen scraps, they are usually pretty slimy anyway, and the only critters interested in them at that stage are earthworms and the rest of what you'll hear referred to around here as "the microherd." I hope you find my comments helpful. Alison

I'm thinking that gardening here would have been a lot easier if only we had poured a concrete slab first and then built raised beds atop the concrete slab. We might have had bermuda grass sprout in the raised beds, but at least it couldn't have also popped up in the pathways. Bermuda grass is evil and I hate it. Also on the hate list? Lambsquarters, Johnson grass, any and all wild amaranths but especially Palmer's amaranth, wild carrots, wild bidens, crab grass, greenbrier and poison ivy. Other than that, I love practically everything else that grows here. This actually is my best bermuda grass year in a very long time. I worked long and hard this year to try to keep it out of the garden. Was I 100% successful? Heck no, but I think I can say I was 95% successful and I'd been working hard to dig out and get rid of any that sprouts or creeps into the garden. I put down a commercial grade of landscape fabric in every pathway but one and covered it with a 4" thick layer of mulch. Prior to putting down the fabric, I rototilled each path and raked out all the weeds and plant roots I could find. The one path that didn't get the landscape fabric was the control path for comparison. Within 2 weeks, I had bermuda grass and other weeds sprouting in the control bed and have been fighting them there ever since. In the pathways where I put the landscape fabric, occasionally something sprouts in the mulch, but I always pull it out, no matter what it is, before the roots can grow down through the landscape fabric. When you use landscape fabric, you have to use a heavy, woven one that does NOT have those little holes punched in it to allow water (lol, and weed seeds and everything else) to flow through the fabric. You have to have the ground clean and bare when you put the fabric down and immediately put down a thick layer of mulch so it is so dark that nothing can sprout beneath the fabric and grow upward. And, you have to pull out every single weed that sprouts in the mulch the very moment you first spot it. Using all the above techniques keeps my garden pathways clear, clean and weed-free, but I have to be very persistent about keeping the weeds out. If you let weeds grow up through the landscape fabric from underneath it or grow down through it from above, you'll have a big mess that is almost impossible to clean out. Finding the right landscape fabric is important. I was really stupid our first year here and bought the one sold at Sam's and Wal-mart (still sold there all these years later too) that has all those millions of little pre-punched holes in it that are supposed to let water through. Well, weeds and grass grew up through every little hole. It was the biggest mess I'd ever seen. Then I found a really heavy-duty one at CostCo. I buy it on rolls that are about 220' or 230' long and 4' wide. It is woven and tough---the bottom is almost like felt. As long as I am careful to install it as described above, it reduces my weed-pulling time to almost nothing. I would love to find the same fabric 8' wide. If I did, I'd put it on all sides of the garden outside the garden fence and cover it with gravel....and dare the bermuda grass to find a way to get under, over or through that and creep into the garden. It would be a perfect solution.

Does anyone know of where there might be information on whether grass only killer, like Grass-B-Gone, is less toxic than Roundup? I remember reading that broad leaf weed killer is a plant hormone that makes the plant try to grow too fast so that it dies making it a less toxic alternative than Round-up, which has the same ingrediants as Agent Orange. Hopefully grass only killer is less toxic also. While trying to find that information I saw this: "Roundup has long been promoted as being safe for humans and the environment while at the same time effective in killing weeds. It is therefore significant when studies begin to show that this herbicide compound is not as safe as its manufacturers claim. "In the late 1990s, a Swedish study published in the journal Cancer revealed links between glyphosate exposure and the development of non-HodgkinÂs lymphoma, a form of cancer. Scientists warned then that with the rapidly increasing use of glyphosate the rate of this otherwise rare cancer could also increase. "More recently a group of scientists from the University of Caen, in France, found that human placental cells are very sensitive to Roundup at concentrations lower than those currently used in agricultural applications. The study of Ontario farming populations showed that exposure to glyphosate nearly doubled the risk of late miscarriages. It also found that the ethoxylated surfactant used in the Roundup formulation studied doubled the toxic effect of the glyphosate. "In 2002, French scientists found that Roundup activates one of the key stages of cellular division that can potentially lead to cancer. There is also research that shows that even brief exposure to glyphosate causes liver damage in rats. The research indicated that glyphosate acted in synergy with the surfactant used in Roundup to increase damage to the liver. "In the US, the amount of 2,4-D applied to soybeans more than doubled from 2002 to 2006. A known carcinogen, 2,4-D was a component of the Vietnam War defoliant Agent Orange." While using Roundup in the garden there would probably be less exposure than what Vietnam veterans experienced, but still it would be wise to use Roundup very carefully on a windless day, plus change clothes and shower immediately after using it. Here is a link that might be useful: Behind the label: Roundup Weedkiller ...