A lasagna garden is an easy-to-follow method for organic gardening that involves creating new beds by layering everyday materials.
Lasagna gardening is a no-dig gardening method that takes what might be considered waste and turns it into nutrient-rich soil for growing a variety of plants. The beds can smother weeds and plant directly on top of the lawn.
Using yard scraps, lawn scraps, kitchen scraps and newspapers, you can create a stunning flower bed in six months. If you can't wait that long, adding a layer of compost to your lasagna bed allows for immediate planting.
What is lasagna gardening?
Lasagna cultivation is also called laminar composting and involves different layers of compostable material. Over time, these layers loosen and become nutrient-rich soil ideal for a variety of plants. Lasagna garden beds can be set up outdoors, even sitting directly on the lawn or in heavily grassed areas of the yard and sitting on top of the ground. Alternatively, if you are considering garden ideas with raised beds for low-maintenance plantings, they can be an effective way to complete the framework.
Why should I try lasagna gardening?
There are a number of benefits that lasagna gardens can offer. Most importantly, they save on waste and use materials that can be sent to landfills. This makes it an eco-friendly way to garden, as cardboard, newspaper, lawn clippings, yard waste, kitchen scraps and more can be used to make lasagna beds.
Allison Wallen Kostovik, organic gardener and founder of Finch + Folly, adds that no tools are needed to create "incredibly rich garden beds" because they reuse so much waste.
"These no-till gardens, also known as leaf litter, are great because they're built on things you'd probably want to get rid of, like broken branches, fallen leaves and kitchen scraps," she says.
"Because these beds are built on a foundation that focuses on building carbon and nitrogen, you're essentially creating self-sustaining compost-rich beds that will enrich your soil as it gradually decomposes. These beds are also very sensitive to drying out because they retain water. and slowly release into the soil over the course of the season.
Lasagna beds can have fewer weeds thanks to cardboard sheets and other plant-killing materials and require less fertilizer because the soil from the decomposing materials will be rich in phytonutrients. A layer of pitless lasagna is filled with a nutrient-rich organic fertilizer that provides essential nutrients in the form of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium, which appears on fertilizer labels as NPK, and is slowly released into the plants.
How to make a bed out of lasagna
Stuffed lasagna is easy to assemble and can be made in just five steps, just make sure you have enough ingredients to make the layers.
Choose a sunny spot to make a bed of lasagna and cover it with newspaper or construction paper to create a base; This can be done directly on the lawn.
Make sure the newspapers are overlapping and well moistened.
Layering then begins here, starting with a mixture of twigs or branches, followed by a 3- to 5-inch layer of "brown ingredients" such as dry leaves, shredded newspaper, wood ash, pine needles, or straw.
Next, add a layer of "green stuff" like grass clippings, kitchen scraps, or yard waste, again aiming for a depth of 3 to 5 inches.
Repeat with the other "brown" layer, then the "green" ingredients, and finish with the "brown" layer.
The finished bed can be up to 2 feet tall, but shrinks quickly as the decomposition process begins. When building the beds, be careful not to add any garden material that may contain seeds, as the bed will not generate the heat that compost does to kill the seeds and they are likely to germinate.
After the beds are established, they can be covered with a six- to eight-inch layer of compost in the fall or spring. Or the process can be repeated again, but without a cardboard base, layers of compost are added on top of the bed left to break down in the fall and ready for planting in the spring.
When is the best time to make a bed of lasagna?
A lasagna garden can be created at any time of the year if you have the right materials. Although autumn is considered the best season to start the process. This is partly because autumn can be the time when gardens are raked and cleaned for the winter, which means lots of leaves, trimmings and other debris can easily end up in the garden.
Fall and winter usually bring a lot of rain or snow, which can keep the diapers wet, which can speed up the decomposition process, and it can take up to six months for a bed of lasagna to decompose starting in the fall. And be ready to plant in the spring.
What plants are good for a bed of lasagna?
As a result of the decomposition of the material on the bed, the soil will be rich in nutrients and suitable for various plants. As with any no-dig gardening method, the combination of carbon- and nitrogen-rich materials used to prepare the bed creates a humus-rich soil that is full of nutrients and slowly releases them to the plants over a long period of time. This makes the lasagna planter ideal for growing almost any plant, including any ideal garden plant that is well-suited to growing without holes.
Adds Alison Wallen Kastovik: "Once your bed is rotting and sitting, you can plant whatever you want. Once your bed is established, you can plant whatever you want. I grow everything from perennials to vegetables to giant, giant sunflowers."
Lasagna beds are great if you're looking for flower or vegetable garden ideas and want to try something greener on your patio.
Is it possible to plant a lagoon immediately in the garden?
Ideally, best practice is to wait six months to a year before planting in a lasagna bed. This gives the bed time to fully decompose and allows the microbes in the decaying material to do their work. The exact time it takes for materials to break down depends on the types of materials used and in what proportion. A good sign that the beds are ready is if you can't identify the scraps used to make the beds. For example, leaves or kitchen scraps are not the same as leaves or kitchen scraps, but more like dirt.
If you can't wait that long and want to plant a lasagna garden right away, there is a solution. Fill compost beds 10 to 14 inches deep and plant immediately. If you decide to plant right away, Alison Wallen Kostovich says it's best to focus on "shallow-rooted vegetables like broccoli, cabbage, lettuce, onions, kale, spinach, collard greens and annual flowers."
A lasagna garden is an eco-friendly and easy way to eliminate waste and create nutrient-rich beds for growing all kinds of plants. While the main obstacle to the idea of sustainable gardening is getting enough material to create layers, reaching out to friends, neighbors and family can help increase your supply and give you everything you need to create lasagna beds in your garden.
