I am thrilled to have the opportunity to introduce you to one of my dearest friends Lauren. She writes about her life, projects and trying new things on her blog Fancy Nonsense – http://www.fancynonsense.com/ . She has graciously agreed to guest post for me about her experience with lasagna gardening. Enjoy!
It’s a privilege to be posting here at 5 Little Homesteaders! Colleen and her sweet family keep me motivated and moving towards a more quiet life in the middle of our big city. It’s like country-urban living.
I love the start of a new gardening season. That’s probably just because I love to start things. I hesitated this year because I needed dirt for my huge raised bed, and dirt here in the city is expensive. I couldn’t justify spending $150 on dirt when I wasn’t going to get that back from the garden. At a play date my neighbor told me about this idea called Lasagna Gardening or No-Dig Gardening. To be honest she had me at lasagna. I’m like Garfield and could eat the whole pan. But more than that I love the idea that like making lasagna, each one is made slightly different and measurements are not super important. I’m a big -ish person, a dash of this, a pinch of that.
Here is the basic idea:
By layering dry compost such as hay, straw, manure, bone meal, blood meal, you are creating an environment that will breakdown as the season goes on and and create a rich nutrient environment as your plants grow. As the materials breakdown, the plants benefit from direct access and the controlled environment that potentially has less disease and pests than the straight unamended ground. Check out the wiki link – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No-dig_gardening and the learning and yearning blog – http://learningandyearning.com/2011/04/20/lasagna-gardening/ for more information. That’s where I started.
This is what we did.
1. Drove the minivan to pick up hay and straw at the nearest feed store.
2. Recycled some of my amazon boxes to keep the weeds from popping up immediately.
3. Put a layer of hay down and sprinkled with blood and bone meal.
4. Put a layer of straw down and sprinkled with blood and bone meal.
5. Put down a few inches of dirt/compost
And this is what we have so far! It will be fun adding plants as the season goes on. Here in Phoenix we have 300 growing days a year!
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What a great growing idea in a space that would otherwise not allow it! Best wishes to all of your efforts. Hope to see the project as it grows.
I’ve heard of this method but never heard it called lasagna gardening- I love the name!
Great name, right? Makes me hungry just thinking about it ????
Thanks for the link-back to my post!!!! I wouldn’t know how to garden with 300 growing days a year!
How do you stop the weeds from germinating in the hay/straw? I’ve tried this method, and the hay just began to grow again
How do you stop the weeds or hay from regrowing? I’ve tried this method, and ended up with grass growing from the hay bale.
Did you put down cardboard first Cathy? The cardboard is key to blocking out the weeds.
The grass grows directly out of the hay bale……the hay seeds germinate! I’ve tried straw bales, and it happens to a lesser degree
Hmmm… hadn’t thought of that and didn’t have that problem here. I suspect it has something to do with the area you live in and where your hay comes from.
i was about to set up six small beds soon and was reading your blog…so I can set this up and my vegetables will grow just as though I planted in a tilled garden? Do I need to set the beds up early ..say December so they are ready or will it decompose before I can use it ?
Honestly…it’s pretty forgiving. Lasagna gardening is best for an area that is really heavy with weeds or where the soil is really poor. If you have few/no weeds and great soil, I’d just go with a regular tilled garden.