Does anyone practice "no dig" gardening?

I am one of the lazy gardeners as well.
My version is cut the grass short put down 6 - 10 layers of newspaper and water it well.
Cover it with 2 - 3" of farm post (well aged horse manure that was ground up with the bedding straw).

Then plant by cutting through the newspaper where I want the plants. If I am in a hurry I plant right away if not I wait a few weeks. I keep telling myself to prepare a garden in the fall, but never do get it done since I want to use the winter to plan what is next.

My usual browser isn't working today and this one won't let me post so photos will have to wait. My soil was already in good shape, just lawn and I want more and more garden and less and less lawn.

ecobioangie, ya could have just said pine needles, I would have got that (chuckle grin) My neighbor has a pine tree that hangs over my fence so I will start to collecting the needles after they drop. We do have trees here in California we are not just sand and surf dude! (grin)
I will have to give the whole thing a try. Going to a Charlie Daniels concert tonight so it is going to have to wait a few days.

sweet! have fun at the concert!

p.s. Pine needles are acidic and will alter the ph of your soil some. Just fyi! Great for azaleas and the like.

So you think this method would alter the pH of my acidic, clay soil in the treed area we have. pH is 6.6 and I want to put hostas there. Karen (liebran)

pine needles make a good mulch for hosta to keep the slugs away I can't answer as to what it will do with a acidic clay soil.

If it's acidic clay already then you probably wouldn't notice anything. That's exactly what we have here. If you had limey loamy soil I'd be more inclined to say it would alter it and you would be able to tell.

Last Thursday I put down black plastic to kill some grass where I am going to experiment with no mow grass. I will leave it in place until mid September and then spread the grass seed right in the old dead stuff. I won't know till spring how it works, but it should be just fine.

zenpotter, I sort of did that on accident. I had laid out blue tarps then put the plants I sell on top of it for a few months. When I cleared out the area, it was mostly naked soil. I threw down grass seeds and did nothing else but water. The whole areas filled in quickly with the new grass. :)

There is a good thread around here someone on Lasagna gardening....

I've been doing this for several years. Even did containers with my neices when they visited.They thought it was cool. Big city girls. Anyway the last bed I did I was covering up the remains of ditch lilies to make a renewed bed. We used some not so good dirt I layered with cb and piled on some better dirt and compost. Then covered with grass clippings. Worked pretty good except some of those darn ditch lilies made it thru. [They are getting round up]the grass clippings are just about all worked in and the soil looks great and so do the plants . I did this in May and the cb was gone a few weeks ago already. I love this method of starting new beds.

Sounds like basically you are planting in a brand new compost pile. Does the soil get really hot as things break down? and I'm guessing that you lose the 'mound' after it breaks down?

I haven't noticed it being hot, it is warmer though. It does sink down as it decomposes.

Hmmm... I'm thinking to dump my un-composted pile contents on a section of the garden bed where nothing is planted and let it cook down over winter. Whatcha think?

Sounds like lasagna more or less! Have fun and save your back. :)

seems like it would work to me!

Obviously, from all the testimony, it works with planting right in it, but I thought the heat was a killer? And doesn't the breakdown process rob all the nitrogen from the soil/mound until things are completed? oh well, old lessons learned and relearned I guess.