Loving Garland Green

Lasagna Beds

This non-cultivation method of gardening is favored by some organic farmers.  Anita and Robert Opel, two founding members of Loving Garland Green follow the lasagna gardening technique for their urban garden.  I have to say that last year Anita and Robert did produce the tastiest radishes I've ever eaten.  This year (2014) their greens are monster-sized.  

Masanobu Fukuoka started his pioneering research work in this domain in 1938, and began publishing in the 1970s his Fukuokan philosophy of "Do Nothing Farming", which is now acknowledged by some as the tap root of the Permaculture movement.

No-dig methods allow nature to carry out cultivation operations. Organic matter such as well rotted manure, compost, leaf mold, spent mushroom compost, old straw, etc., is added directly to the soil surface as a mulch at least 2–6 in deep, which is then incorporated by the actions of worms, insects and microbes. Worms and other soil life also assist in building up the soil's structure, their tunnels providing aeration and drainage, and their excretions bind together soil crumbs. This natural biosphere maintains healthy conditions in the upper soil horizons where annual plant roots thrive.

No-dig systems are said to be freer of pests and disease, possibly due to a more balanced soil population being allowed to build up in this undisturbed environment, and by encouraging the buildup of beneficial rather than harmful soil fungi.

Moisture is also retained more efficiently under mulch than on the surface of bare earth, allowing slower percolation and less leaching of nutrients. Another no-dig method is sheet mulching wherein a garden area is covered with wetted paper or cardboard, compost and topped off with landscape mulch.

 

Below is a time-lapsed video of another version of a lasagna bed.  This raised bed has leaves, straw, manure, and Starbucks coffee grounds. Layered gardening as it will have very few weeds. Starbucks has a program for their used coffee grounds called "Grounds for Coffee". You can pick up their used coffee grounds for free. The worms love it! 

Lasagna Gardening also is identified by many other monikers such as No Dig Garden, Layered Gardening, Sheet mulching, etc.  As with just about every human activity, there is no one way set in stone, thus leaving room for continuous improvement of any given process--we even have a name for that process (It's called "progress.")

 

STEPS TO BUILDING A NO DIG GARDEN

1. Pace out the area you wish to convert. You will be covering this space with cardboard or wet newspaper three or four sheets thick with a couple of inches overlap all round. Get a rough idea of how much you will require.

2. Save your newspapers, including local and free press papers, that you recycle. Just use newsprint--not glossy paper. You can also use plain, brown cardboard. Remove tape, staples, and adhesive labels. Moisten the cardboard first.

3. Get enough mulch to cover the area of your garden plot to a depth of three inches.You can collect leaves in autumn and use those. They will gradually break down and nourish the soil underneath, and while they do, they will keep moisture in and weeds in check.

4.Closely mow or cut the area in preparation, leaving everything you cut lying on the ground 

5. Water the area well.

6. Put newspapers in container such as a wheelbarrow and water well.

7. Open the wet newspapers and layer them onto the ground three or four sheets thick, overlapping a couple of inches at the edges.  

• The paper and other matter will block light to whatever weeds or sod you cover with it. What you put on top of the paper will hold the paper down, conceal the paper from view, and make anything new that grows on top much easier to pull. If you are covering Bermuda grass, use extra paper and materials to cover as Bermuda seems to come up through just about anything.
   

8. Add a planting layer or layers. Spread a thick layer of finished compost. This step is optional, but it will allow you to plant sooner and above, rather than through, the newspaper. This option works well with a raised bed, if you choose to build one. Worm castings and composted herbivore manure (rabbit, cow, horse) can also be blended with this layer if you have them.  Note:  If you do not add a thick layer of finished compost, you will need to add a layer of nitrogen-rich materials such as grass clippings and vegetable waste from your kitchen and cover that with a layer of leaves.  You can also add these two layers and add a layer of compost on top of the leaves.

9. Spread the mulch. Mulch helps contain the moisture in your bed, keep the weeds down, and give a finished appearance.

10 Finish the edges, if you did not build a raised bed first.  For example, put rocks or bricks around the edges of your garden.