lasagna beds

This may sound dumb but I am a new enthusiastic gardener and I was reading the book on lasagna gardening and wondering: Do you plant through the layers and stop when you reach the newspapers or dig a hole through the papers?Whew!! Thanks, LoL

Hi Lady! Nice to see you and welcome to Dave's.

I'd like to know more about the Lasagna Method too.

This is just my opinion here but this is what I think. First it would depend on how many layers you have. I mean if I had the newspaper on the very bottom of my bed and then I had several layers on top of it....I would probably just stop at the newspaper layer. But also it would depend on the size of plant you are planting too, most plants that are store bought are not really in that deep of a pot unless you have a 1-3 or 5 gal size pot. So if I was using the bed for just small bedding plants I would simply dig the hole just a little bit deeper than the pot it is coming from but wider of course and plant it that way. If it means that I had to go thru the newspaper then I would...I think it just depends. Again this is just my opinion as to what I would do in my own lasagna bed if I had one.

Thank you so much Mollybee.All of you are so helpful and I am so exicited to be a part of Daves gardeners! Thanks again and LOL Dancininglady

No problem at all Dancinglady, Just glad to help.

Welcome to DG, jump right in and lets play in the dirt!

I have done it like Mollybee but sometimes the grass grows right up through that hole so you need to watch that area. Most of the time I wait three weeks at least before planting in the beds. By that time the weeds and grass are dead.
Good luck and welcome to DG Lani

I was thinking about grass growing up through the hole too.
But I am going to make the lasagna beds anyway and watch like you said. Thank you Ponditis. How many beds do you have?
Dancinglady

The purpose of the paper is to act as a weed barrior. Cutting through it lets them grow up into the bed.

Keep in mind, though, that the paper itself becomes waterlogged, and, eventually, part of the tilth.

If you plant above it, the roots of your veggies will grow down through the paper with no trouble.

So, my advice is to not puncture it.

So where is this famous lasanga method? Punched search to no avail!

I read of it once in a web site of "Mother Earth News", if I can find it, will post. Maybe someone else knows a site?
...farizona

Edited to add this:
http://www.motherearthnews.com/archive/issues/173/173-050-01.htm

This message was edited Wednesday, Apr 9th 12:13 AM

http://www.lasagnagardening.com/uof/lasagnagardening/

and here:http://ourgardengang.tripod.com/lasagna_gardening.htm

so far all I have managed to any extent is four flower beds that I did with Lasagana gardening techniques. I have one more for my tropical flowers getting ready for them right now. By next year I am hoping to have some more flower beds ready.

And here's our own member's thoughts on this method: http://davesgarden.com/terms/go/524

Ya'll are wonderful! :D

Thanks for all of the links, I really like you guys!

Yay, Lasagna Gardening is a cute - but hardly original - idea from Patrica Lanza (find the book on Amazon).

The idea of no-dig gardening 'started' in the 19th century (it's well attested in the Journal of Horticulture, 1872). It was pioneered in the US by Scott Nearing in the '30s, popularised by Ruth Stout in the '70s, and has been a pillar of Bill Mollison's permaculture since the '80s.

Ms Lanza simply added the idea of laying newspaper over the soil first, to suppress weeds.

You can get the same effect, in the most weedy garden, by digging a shallow 6in-8in deep trench. Then putting in a gutter made from corrugated cardboard. Fill with good weed-free soil. Add your transplants.

The cardboard keeps the weeds out long enough for the transplants to sink their roots.

By the time the cardboard has rotted (around 7 weeks), the transplants have got their roots down and can fight their own battle with weeds.

This is far better than lasagna gardening. Because deep mulch attracts molluscs.

Verily, I have used cardboard gutters for several years all over my weed-infested paddock - and find them much preferable to mollusc-attracting, deep mulch.

And I never have to weed...

Here's a pix of Swiss chard growing away in cardboard gutters - surrounded by weeds.

Nice idea, John, I'll have to try that in my main garden. I can dig the trench with a plow or furrow/hiller and save my back muscles, and I always have plenty of cardboard around here!

I just can't resist posting my Swiss Chard in my "no work" garden (Ruth Stout style). For some reason I STILL am not being attacked by slugs even tho it is heavily mulched. (Course now, the mulch certainly didn't slow down the dang flea beetles!)

Forgive my denseness here, but the gutters? You just fold the cardboard like a gutter and plant. Sounds too easy but way cool. I'm gonna try this asap. In fact, someone else had a great tip on edging which would probly work well with this: dry cement under the cardboard edges to keep the grass out. Whaddaya think?

In Bill Mollison's (and others') books on permaculture, this is called "sheet mulching" and I've done it to my front garden this last October, as the very first step of my gardening efforts. I just got a hold of Mollison's book "Introduction to Permaculture" and the first page I read (in the middle of the book) was on sheet mulching and he has this to say about grass or other weeds that *do* manage to poke through:

Dig a hole around them, stuff them down into it, put a sheet of cardboard, a piece of carpet, old clothes (whatever) over the plant, then re-sheet mulch it with the remaining layers.

The recommendation seems to be to sheet mulch and not plant for 3 to 6 months -- ideal winter gardening for those of us not buried under snow. Don't set your goals too high to start with -- do a 4-foot length and then do more another day -- it's labor intensive stuff!

For seeds or small seedlings, don't poke holes in the tough layer, just make a valley and put in some extra topsoil to get the plants started. If you're going to plant a potted plant and must have the depth, use a knife to cut a hole through.

Old thread, I know, but it's my current passion.

Hey, nowheat, it may be an old thread, but it's still a great idea!

This Spring, I'm doing all that, to rear 120 different heirloom plants - tomatoes, legumes, and brassica.

Curious thing is, if you're not too worried about yield, weeds don't bother a legume much. Or a healthy tomato, that's been transplanted in modules. Or a big brassica. Or anything else at all, save only onions. (Alliums are great haters of weeds.)

So, save your back, and let the weeds thrive! The energy you expend in killing them can never be replaced by the energy you gain in eating the extra produce, that you might arguably have grown from weeding them...

This message was edited Feb 23, 2004 6:40 PM