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Bayard

(21,801 posts)
Thu Feb 18, 2016, 12:14 PM Feb 2016

Lasagna Gardening

Hi all!

Just discovered this group, looks like the Rural group is kaput.

Anyone doing lasagna gardening? I'm starting some HUGE gardens this year, and trying this in the flower garden. I was able to get an entire bundled load of free flattened cardboard boxes from the local Amish store, so that will be my base. Then horse manure and bedding on top of that, leaves/twigs on that, more manure, then pine needles/leaves from our woods, and more manure/bedding (did I mention I have horses?). So green layers, then brown layers. Already getting the fence done (combination of gabions (lovely rocks free from my veterinarian), and dead cedar posts/rails from our farm). Easy and fun to build. Hope to start laying cardboard this weekend, snow should be melted. The flower garden will be about 200' x 200', with lots of mulched paths. Basically, redoing my front yard. I have all my seeds, and some transplants--very exciting! Trying to get the process going before planting in April.

The vege garden is a small pasture being converted. Much too big for lasagna'ing. I really don't want to go the Roundup route, but don't know there will be much choice. The good thing is I can get all the free wood mulch I want from a sawmill up the road.

What say you? Would like to post photos when I figure out how to do it.










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Lasagna Gardening (Original Post) Bayard Feb 2016 OP
Wow. You are on the way to a great garden. alfie Feb 2016 #1
Been doing that for years on a small scale. LiberalEsto Feb 2016 #2
Thanks guys! Bayard Feb 2016 #3

alfie

(522 posts)
1. Wow. You are on the way to a great garden.
Thu Feb 18, 2016, 12:46 PM
Feb 2016

10 years ago I used cardboard to cover my entire yard...it was a small one. I had a truck then, a better back, and a lot more energy. I hauled loads of mushroom compost to fill flower beds and the 4 raised beds I had put in for a veggie bed. The results were amazing. You will get to the same place but using your own stuff! I compost to add to my beds each year, but since I only have kitchen scraps, coffee grinds and yard waste, I don't get enough to make much. I covered my veggie beds with mulch and am pushing it aside, dumping my kitchen scraps and coffee grinds then pulling the mulch back over it. So I am lasagna layering to top off the beds. I could never have gotten enough to fill the beds to start with.

 

LiberalEsto

(22,845 posts)
2. Been doing that for years on a small scale.
Thu Feb 18, 2016, 12:58 PM
Feb 2016

I've slowed down as I get older, because I can no longer lift and haul big bags of soil improvement material. My vegetable garden is four raised beds, each one 4 feet by 8 feet. Each is surrounded by cinderblocks. I put soil in each block hole and use them to grow garlic, herbs and marigolds.

One thing I liked about L.G. is the idea of making upside-down U-shaped support poles from metal electrical conduit. I have 10-foot-high supports in each vegetable bed. When planting pole beans, peas, tomatoes, cucumbers, etc. I run lengths of cotton clothesline down from the center rail and train the young plants up the ropes. Makes it easier to pick, prune and de-bug.

Our biggest challenge in growing vegetables is keeping the deer and rabbits out. Several years ago I got someone to install 4 by 4 inch, 7 foot high posts set in concrete around the perimeter of my small garden, and stapled netting to it. I also set up a lower metal rabbit fence, partly buried under patio stones to keep the critters from tunneling in.

Please look for alternatives to Roundup. It's a nasty chemical.

Bayard

(21,801 posts)
3. Thanks guys!
Fri Feb 19, 2016, 11:26 AM
Feb 2016

Another quandary is this mixture isn't going to be composted much by the time I should be planting in April. I don't know how much good black dirt (all red clay down by the house) I can scrounge out of the woods to top it off, and most of that has a lot of weed seeds in it---kind of defeats the purpose of the lasagna.

I should have started back in the fall so it could cook over the winter. Any ideas?

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