I have read a little bit about lasagna gardening now and am planning to try it this year. How did your garden do? Does this method work as well as the author says? I have not yet bought the book, only read an article. Is the book worth buying? I will not be buying peat moss or anything, only using what I have available (straw/manure, grass clippings, leaves, newspaper etc.) What did you use? Please fill me in! Thanks! Jean

-- Jean (schiszik@tbcnet.com), January 30, 2001

Answers

Hi Jean, When I lived in Florida, I had a patch of ground that used to be an old hay field that I wanted to use for a garden area. I didn't have the resources to have it plowed, so I started by laying down wet newspaper, followed by old barn hay, and then manure (horse, chicken and goat),and leaves (I would go around town and gather up peoples leaf bags off the curbs...got some strange looks!) followed by wet feed sacks. I kept this up throughout late summer, the fall and winter. By spring, I had the prettiest patch of garden area you ever saw!! It was great! I continue to lasagna garden to this day. I saw an article also, that is how I came about doing it. But, then I got the book. It is full of good stuff! (But, in my humble opinion, you probably won't need the book) Sissy

-- sissy sylvester-barth (jerreleene@hotmail.com), January 30, 2001.

Hi Jean, I agree with Sissy. I don't know if you really need the book, unless you just really want it for future reference. I read the old Ruth Stout books years ago and use my own variation of her methods. The lasagna gardening idea seems like a variation on the same theme, with a little refinement. I just put down newsprint (several layers), feedsacks, cardboard, etc, and cover with whatever I can scrounge, usually weathered hay. I used to gather tons of leaves when I lived in the city, but now I just rake up what is right here on my place. I add cow, horse, rabbit, chicken manure, whatever I can get when I need it, and let it all do it's thing. I use common sense and don't heavily manure when I have tender young plants in the ground. Most of my layering takes place in fall and winter and our relatively mild climate (Arkansas) allows the microbes to do their thing all winter long. Now my husband, he prefers to turn everything into the soil at the end of winter, but that is a mess, tangling in the tiller tines. I prefer to just leave it, pull back the mulch for a row, and plant, then add more newpaper and hay mulch. We went through one of the worst summer droughts in history last year, but the garden survived.

-- melina b. (goatgalmjb1@hotmail.com), January 31, 2001.