Introduction To Lasagna Gardening
Not quite as delicious as the name suggests, lasagna gardening is a good method for people who live in areas plagued by weeds (i.e. BERMUDA GRASS) or poor soil. Read on to learn more....
I love the start of a new gardening season. That’s probably just because I love to start things. I hesitated this year because I needed dirt for my huge raised bed, and dirt here in the city is expensive. I couldn’t justify spending $150 on dirt when I wasn’t going to get that back from the garden. At a play date my neighbor told me about this idea called Lasagna Gardening or No-Dig Gardening.
Here is the basic idea:
By layering dry material such as hay, straw, manure, bone meal, blood meal, you are creating an environment that will breakdown as the season goes on and and create a rich nutrient environment as your plants grow. As the materials breakdown, the plants benefit from direct access and the controlled environment that potentially has less disease and pests than the straight unamended ground. This is what we did.1. Drove the minivan to pick up hay and straw at the nearest feed store.2. Recycled some of my amazon boxes to keep the weeds from popping up immediately.
3. Put a layer of hay down and sprinkled with blood and bone meal.
4. Put a layer of straw down and sprinkled with blood and bone meal.
5. Put down a few inches of dirt/compost
I love the start of a new gardening season. That’s probably just because I love to start things. I hesitated this year because I needed dirt for my huge raised bed, and dirt here in the city is expensive. I couldn’t justify spending $150 on dirt when I wasn’t going to get that back from the garden. At a play date my neighbor told me about this idea called Lasagna Gardening or No-Dig Gardening.
Here is the basic idea:
By layering dry material such as hay, straw, manure, bone meal, blood meal, you are creating an environment that will breakdown as the season goes on and and create a rich nutrient environment as your plants grow. As the materials breakdown, the plants benefit from direct access and the controlled environment that potentially has less disease and pests than the straight unamended ground. This is what we did.1. Drove the minivan to pick up hay and straw at the nearest feed store.2. Recycled some of my amazon boxes to keep the weeds from popping up immediately.
3. Put a layer of hay down and sprinkled with blood and bone meal.
4. Put a layer of straw down and sprinkled with blood and bone meal.
5. Put down a few inches of dirt/compost
Getting the straw and hay. Minivans have many, many uses.
Step 3
Step 4
The finished product!
Want more details about this and other DIY projects? Check out my blog post!
Comments
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2 of 14 comments
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I've used a method similar to this type of lasagna gardening. It started with a 6x8 patch and has grown. The soil is remarkable. My garden also asked for spoiled veggies to be put in it...layer by layer including black and white newspaper mixed in with the 'ingredients' found above.
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I think this is the only way I'd ever create a garden. Forget tilling and digging. My layer to get the bacteria in that makes everything into rich dirt is a layer of leaf-gro, or Leaf compost. Usually on top of the cardboard layer so it would kind of work itself up through each subsequent layer. Come to think of it, I used straw rather than hay. I also used it several layers down. As long as any hay seeds don't get close enough to the top, they won't germinate. I usually also just bury yard waste in these gardens. Under a layer of the dirt I made, or under a new leaf-grow layer. Goes right back into the soil! I have THE richest gardens.
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