Good advice given above. You had a couple of problems, but you can learn and do better next time and also salvage what you've got now. One problem is that both the leaves and the peat moss can end up repelling water. Another problem is that you don't have enough high nitrogen stuff (sometimes called greens), so you've got a bunch of high carbon (aka browns) and you need a mixture of carbon and nitrogen to get it to decompose quickly.

UCG from Starbucks will help with the nitrogen. Unfortunately, if you layer them too thickly, they can repel water, too. If you mix the coffee grounds with the leaves, you'll probably alleviate the water repelling qualities. It might start to heat up a bit, so I'd wait to plant to make sure it doesn't get too hot.

Usually, with lasagna gardening, you'd want to have several layers of leaves alternating with coffee grounds (or manure, or grass clippings, etc). You'd do the layering in the fall and it would be much reduced in volume (and somewhat decomposed) by spring. This year, you'll be planting in something that is less decomposed, so you may need more nitrogen than you usually would need and you might want to do as luckygal suggests and plant in some soil instead of directly into the organic matter.

For next fall, I think I'd be inclined to skip the peat moss. I don't use peat moss much because of the water repelling potential. Something that repels water if it dries out is not a helpful thing in the desert.

Sorry to read about your trouble, but don't get discouraged.The soil is a good idea.
I tried lasagna beds last spring for the first time. I had nothing but newspapers, leaves from my yard and some topsoil that I had ordered. I laid the newspapers down and hosed them down, then covered them with alternate layers of the leaves and topsoil. Sometimes the newspapers would dry out before I could get them weighted down with the soil and they would flap or be blowing all over my yard :-). Being a new first time property owner, I did not own a lot of gardening equipment and the leaves were whole and not crushed.
I started on the project early in April. Then in May, I would beg my neighbor for grass clippings from his lawn which I would dump on top. I watered the beds but not so much.
By end of May, I started getting a little anxious and covered the beds with mulch from Lowes.
I had not much hope of having the beds ready last summer, but ready they did get. The earthworms I would find in those lasagna beds were huge. The flowers I planted bloomed all through summer. They were spectacular!!

So, my advice, don't give up hope.

This year, I have another lasagna bed started up with carpet pieces from my house and flattened card board boxes weighed down with bricks as the first layer. This will stop the weeds and/or grass. The rain this week will help break it down. I plan to buy a lawn tractor this year, so I will have some crushed leaves and grass clippings to cover with.
Maybe I will use some coffee grounds from Starbucks also.

Anna

I'm not a fan of 'lasagna beds'. I tried it, too, and won't repeat the experiment. If I lived where it rained a lot more, it might make sense, but it didn't work for me.

If I were you, I'd try to mix those leaves into the stuff you have going on there and then cover (hide) the disaster with a layer of compost mixed with soil.

Look up 'interbay mulch' on this site and on the 'net. It's similar to this goofy lasagna bed idea, but a little more cognizant of the processes and the requirements. Basically, it's a compost-in-place technique.

I looked up interbay mulch on this website, and I'm not entirely sure what it is. So basically it's just putting a wet burlap on top of mulch and organic matter?

As I understand it, interbay mulch is creating a compost-like mixture, spreading over your garden bed, and covering it with burlap or something similar to help control moisture/keep if from blowing off. It's done in the fall in northern climates where the garden bed won't be in production.

By spring, the compost mixture should be broken down enough to plant in it. This technique was developed in Seattle, so bear in mind that Seattle winters are cold and wet and you may have to periodically water your bed(s) to approximate the same conditions.

Basically, it's a compost-in-place technique. In many regards, it's an improvement over compost bins.

Sounds like lasagna gardening, but with an additional lawyer of burlap. I don't understand why it's goofy without the burlap and not goofy with it. It's dry where I am, too and I've never had to use any burlap to reduce the goofiness.

As far as I can tell, Lasagna gardening, interbay mulch and sheet composting are variations on a theme.

I do need to add that I live in CT where it rains in spring and summer. We never have to use sprinklers for our lawns and mostly get away with not watering the plants except every other week.
The advantages of lasagna beds as I see them, are multifold and came from first hand experience:
1. Its much less labor intensive and cost effective.
2. Initially, I had started out in one area by digging out the lawn and grass. I encountered so many roots growing underneath, some of them must have been poison ivy and got severe rashes.
3.Then in another area, where I wanted to plant my vegetable garden, I rented a rototiller for $75 and tilled the earth - not easy, the roots would get entangled in the tiller.
4.In both situations, the weeds took over within a week and the grass came back too.
5. When the land is tilled or dug up, the eco balance is disturbed and you end up killing/harming the earthworms and
good organisms that actually help keep the soil aerated etc.
6. When you layer the ground, what happens is that light is blocked, which prevents weeds from coming up. When the greens and browns mix and decompose, the organismic activity is high resulting in loamy, rich compost which works great for the plants. Thus the plants thrive well since in addition to rich nutrients, they do not have to deal with competing with weeds.

I lived in southwestern Connecticut as a teenager. I still have family there. It's a temperate rainforest. Average annual rainfall is 50 inches. That's more than Seattle (where I have also lived).

Boise Idaho, not so much.

If you can make lasagna techniques work for you, that's great. But I've tried it and won't repeat the experiment.

Idaho gardener,

Do you mind describing how you did your lasagna experiment and whatever alternative was more successful for you?

I'm just curious. Even though we normally get a pretty good rainfall, my area of Alabama has been in severe drought for the last couple of years, so growing anything has been a challenge.

I did two beds last year that ended up very different (thickness wise), performed very differently, and with different amounts of sun. I realized that my less thick one was going to be a challenge, and it was. (It really had no high sides to contain the layers.) It was also in the sunnier location (getting HOT afternoon sun) and posed even more of a challenge to keep stuff watered.

How deep was the initial bed? How many layers?
Did you add to it during the season? How did you handle watering a lasagna bed vs watering a regular garden?

(I had a problem gathering enough materials as I didn't start mine until early winter and hadn't collected lots of leaves during the fall.)

Please know I'm not challenging you...I'm just curious.

On my "dry" lasagna bed from last year I've mulched with 8" or more inches of hay, ala Ruth Stout system. We had a HUGE rain two weeks ago and the ground is still moist underneath.

I'm sorry your experiment failed but hopefully you were able to turn under the OM you put on the beds to help out with whatever you tried next.

tampasteve, you are going to have to---somehow---thoroughly soak that peat moss. Peat moss that is not initially saturated with water will repel water for a very long time. That's been my experience and it's often said. And it won't be easy. I think you're going to have to flood the spot, finding someway to contain the runoff.

Unfortunately over the years, much of what makes lasagna beds work has been "lost in translation" and mis-application. The author makes this point well in her follow-up book.

Lasagna beds aren't just piles of anything. Like compost they require a balance of green (nitrogen) and brown (carbon) components to work. Your original mixture lacked any sources of nitrogen - no green layers. It contained nothing that would have initiated the decomposition process. So it is back to Lasagna Gardening 101 time to learn how it is supposed to be done. ;)

This bed is most certainly salvageable, even with all the carbon ingredients already in it, and in the process of turning it into a correct lasagna bed, the problems with the peat, leaves, etc. will all be solved. Side benefit. ;)

So go back to the beginning - get yourself a good source of greens (nitrogens): UGC, manure, vegetable produce, urea, blood meal, etc. etc and mix it in well throughout the bed. Then you can add additional layers of materials on top - ALTERNATING layers of greens and browns rather than just using all browns as you originally did - wait a couple of months and then, creating small pockets of soil, put your plants in it and all will be fine.

Good luck with your garden.

Dave

Here is a link that might be useful: Lasagna Gardening 101

Pennymca, I would be happy to describe how I made a lasagna bed.

18 month ago, in the fall, I flattened cardboard boxes, and laid one layer onto a sunny area in my lawn. The soil is clay with a pH of 7.8. The clay extends more than 18" down. I next laid fresh, green grass clippings in a layer about 2". I next laid a layer of shredded sliver maple leaves in a layer about 3-4". I also put about 1-2" of Starbucks coffee grounds on that layer. Another layer of grass clippings. Then, I laid a layer of clay soil over that, some coffee grounds, and topped it with about 5" of home made compost. My compost is mainly made from shredded leaves, grass clippings and apples.

It was about 10" thick when I was finished. I would describe it as 5 layers, not including the cardboard.

I don't remember if I had watered that in, but I do know that I flood irrigate my yard during irrigation season. I watched the bed during the winter, a season where we get our 11" of precipitation. I did see some settling. In the spring I could see that everything was intact, little decomposition was evident.

Seeing that there was little to work with, I made an attempt to grow muskmelon and watermelon in the layer of compost on the top. A lesson learned there; the melon did not thrive until its roots could find some mineral soil to grow in.

Last fall, I reworked that bed. I spaded the bed and dug out some chunks of sod. The cardboard was halfway decomposed and large earthworms were underneath. The grass and leaves had made some progress but hadn't finished. I double dug it as best I could, blended the top layers, and added more compost. It will probably be a lettuce and greens patch this year, but I expect it will also have a weed problem.

If I were to attempt another lasagna bed, I would start earlier to take advantage of the warm weather, dig a 12" deep trench around it to keep morning glory and grass rhizomes out, use more layers/make it deeper, keep the hump moist, and keep it covered. And less coffee grounds.

But there are some very distinct advantages to using the interbay mulch method; it directly modifies the underlying soil as it decomposes. I may solarize a patch of sod to deal with weed and grass seeds, and then go directly to interbay mulch as my next experiment.

I'm sorry that some of you haven't been happy with your lasagna attempts. I've done it several times, some covered with burlap or breathable cotton, some not. Seems to me the fabric top does help in the breakdown. From what I've read this is more a result of the darkness it creates than moisture retention or heat retention. I've been delighted with the results and so have my plants.

I've never used peat in these beds. It does repel water, not an effect I want. I prefer cardboard to newspaper, and I use it only as one layer on the very bottom. I wet thoroughly as I build it, mixing green and brown as in composting. I try not to use layers at all. Rather, I mix something like grass clippings and leaves, wet down, add coffee grounds and straw, stir and wet down. It has worked very well.

You really don't need peat at all, and you don't have to use separate layers of green and brown. Mix 'em up.

Karen

I agree with the last post, mixing gives me better results over layering. I got more odors and more water runoff in the few times layering was attempted.

If I were to make a Lasagna pile, I would cut out the sod, and maybe forget newspaper.

There was reference to the 'German mound' method recently; where one plants in the mound which provides sustance over a number of years. Wiki was the only place I found any info on the German mound, and not much was there.

I make my lasagna beds pretty much like Karen does. I don't put newspaper on the bottom, because I like to use it as an upper mulch layer.

I have made eight (8) lasagna beds with great results. Here in the south, I would never use peat moss due to the intense heat of the sun; there is no way I can maintain the moisture level to keep the peat moss wet. Another thing I learned is to make the beds at least twenty-two (22) inches high, this is to allow enough heat to be generated during the breakdown of organic material. The beds have shrunk down to about five (5) inches over the years, but the soil is soft and very fertile.

I too, like Karen practice using cardboard as a bottom layer; however, Annpats idea of using as a top layer to suppress weeds is a good suggestion as well. I feel making the bed high enough is the key to success, but others have shared making them lower. Again, using peat moss here in the south may need to be avoided at all costs IMOÂ

Blutranes

I have a lasagna question. Is it necessary to poke a hole all the way through the bottom layer of cardboard or newspaper when direct sowing or transplanting to allow root penetration?

I have made several modified "lasagna" beds. The first one I made was about 20" deep. It was a perennial bed and I couldn't bring myself to plant in raw layers, so I plopped a trowelful of dirt in every planting hole. I'm not your expert on "lasagna"---I have never built a "true" lasagna bed. One of my instant beds was simply me lifting my hardware cloth bins off two side by side winter piles one spring, leveling them to a depth of about 24 inches and planting in what was fairly rough compost.

No, you don't poke holes in the newspaper or cardboard, rj. Your layers should be too deep initially to worry about that, and later the paper will have deteriorated to the point where the roots will easily penetrate.

I don't understand the necessity of the bottom layers of paper in a lasagna bed at all. I presume that the idea is to kill the sod on which one is building the bed. Does Lanza think that sod is going to bust through two feet of mulch if she doesn't put that newspaper barrier there?

I always hope people who are excited by the lasagna method are aware of Ruth Stout as well.

Wow, thanks for all the responses, guys!

The reason I starting mixing the layers was that the compost was acting like a barrier and blocking the water from getting down to the peat moss.

A couple of quick questions:

I have grass clippings from mowing the yard a couple of weeks ago in my compost pile. Would this be green enough? It's about time to mow again. Should I wait for the grass clippings to die before adding them to the failed lasagna bed?

Regarding coffee grounds- Do you just walk into Starbucks and ask the manager for old coffee grounds? Do they keep them separate from the other trash, or do you have to pick through it when you get it home? Do you just load a trash can or large cooler into the trunk of your car when you go to get coffee grounds?

Since it's just me and my wife, we don't produce a ton of vegetable scraps or coffee grounds on our own. What else is a source of "greens" readily available around the home?

I have a plastic tarp that I could secure over the raised bed. Blue on one side, reflective on the other. Would this help accelerate the breakdown of the live oak leaves?

Thanks again for all the advice!

Well, all I have is my own experience (2 years) with lasagna beds. I've been doing relatively shallow ones, because I didn't have access to a lot of different things, and also because one area was over tree roots and I didn't want to smother them.

Anyhow, I did cardboard, weighed down with the grass from the edges, grass clippings, leaves, then compost. It has worked very, very well for me. We have had very wet spring/summers the past couple of years, so that probably helped.

I will say that the cardboard was necessary, at least with the shallow lasagna beds I made. Where there were gaps that I missed, I had grass growing up and through, so if I hadn't used any, it would've been a huge mess all over the place.

'Regarding coffee grounds- Do you just walk into Starbucks and ask the manager for old coffee grounds? Do they keep them separate from the other trash, or do you have to pick through it when you get it home? Do you just load a trash can or large cooler into the trunk of your car when you go to get coffee grounds?"

Starbucks has a corporate policy called "Grounds for your garden" where the stores are supposed to make the grounds available for free to anybody. They usually put them in the bags they originally came in (sometimes called silver bags here), with a little sticker explaining how they can be used. Some will just tie up the trash bag (I like those because there's more in those bags). Some will pull the filters out, but if I see somebody doing that, I let them know that the filters will decompose, too. Depending on the location, there may be more from the drip coffeemakers (which tend to be wetter) or more from the espresso machines (often called hockey pucks).

Many will have a bucket near the door (sometimes near the counter or in the back of the store). If you don't see one or if it's empty, get in line and when you get to the counter, ask if they have any grounds available. At a few where they've gotten to know me, they'll gather the grounds when they see me come in if there aren't any in the bucket.

You don't need to buy anything to get the grounds. You're doing them a favor by reducing their trash (and the trash bills).

If the grounds are mostly the hockey pucks, they won't drip, but if they have a lot of drip grounds, it pays to have a container or a couple of extra garbage bags. I try to keep a large Rubbermaid container in my car for the grounds.

I believe your grass clippings would be perfect for your "disaster". They are amazing for getting things going. I made a lasagna bed two years ago in early spring, and was absolutely amazed at what grew in it that summer. But, I have a hate for peat. I have spent hours trying to get it wet -- hot water, wheelbarrow with spray and a hoe to try and mix it. Nasty stuff. I bought a bale and cut the top open and left it out in our winter rains but still wasn't easy to work with. If I were you, I would mix in the grass clippings and add some topsoil on top and plant into what you have. Nothing to lose...

If you already bought peat moss and compost, I don't even understand why you'd bother with lasagna-ing it, you already have a perfectly good soil to plant in. You just need to to moisten the peat moss with a mist of water, turn, mist, turn , mist repeat and it will be moist in no time. I just put in a raised bed yesterday that was nothing more than a 4'x4' 2x6 frame plopped over the sod, several layers of newspaper, then some peat moss and bagged compost mized with a little Plant-Tone ferts and its rtg. Took less than 15 minutes.

About coffee grounds - our town is too small to have a Starbucks but we do have a Tim Horton's so I spoke with the manager and provide them with 2 x 68L (15 gallons) Rubbermaid containers which they fill and we collect every 2 days. This is only a small part of their UCG output but I don't think they are set up to provide more. I'm happy to get that much and the UCG do have filters with them. We have a square black vinyl pond (yard sale find) which fits in the back of the van or pick-up and DH dumps them in there, then shovels them out in our tarp lined snow crater. When snow goes, I start playing with UCG! Can't wait.

We also have another coffee shop which puts the grounds into the foil bags and leaves them by their front door for anyone to take. They don't have filters in theirs and they are finer grounds.

I think if you just ask you might be able to start a UCG program with any shop where no one else wants them. I talked to other places that sell coffee but they already had people taking them or didn't want to be bothered at that time. Definitely worth asking tho IMO.

tampasteve: Those fresh grass clippings would be great, as would coffee grounds. I'd put them in, mix with a garden fork, spray well with the hose, mix in more grounds or grass, mix well, wet with the hose. Keep doing that and you should eventually get that peat moist. Try to mix it enough that you have a homogenous mixture, and don't foret to moisten often as you do it.

Starbucks vary with the policy by location. In my city they never routinely save them. But a small coffee shop opened very close to my house this year and they are happy to save grounds for me. It's a pretty small operation so they don't generate the huge volume that Starbucks does, but I probably get close to a 5 gallon bucket full each week. I take a clean bucket 2 or 3 times a week to replace the one I'm picking up. I supply the buckets.

Many folks here also collect grounds from gas stations and convenience stores that sell coffee. When you don't need them for lasagna or your compost, just apply directly to your garden or lawn.

Karen

Here is a link that might be useful: Starbucks

piedmontnc,
"You just need to to moisten the peat moss with a mist of water, turn, mist, turn , mist repeat and it will be moist in no time."

That is the most astonishing thing that I have ever read. By mist, I assume you mean a flood of water? I'd love to see the kind of peat that is so easily moistened. I'm challenging you on that. I have had a lot of experience with peat in my younger days and I've never seen peat moss made garden ready by "misting".

As I said, I've never used peat in lasagna. I've never bought peat for anything. My experience is based mostly on peat based potting mix, which I use a lot of for seed starting and flower pots in summer.

Maybe "spray" would be a better word choice than "mist".

In fall I dump out anything left in containers. I compost all the vegetative material in my bins, might dump the potting mix in there too. No problem with it drying out after mixing well with everything else in there. I always use a few flower pots that are just too big and heavy to lug back to my compost so I just dump those into flower beds. If I mix all that peat well and moisten as I add some wet coffee grounds and grass clippings it becomes wet and works fine.

Now my yard is pretty wet- lawn soil, flower beds are very moist from spring snow and ice melt and recent rain. But 2 areas where I just dumped a couple big pots of peat based potted plants last fall are bone dry as far down as my fingers reach. I will mix in a few buckets of wet UCGs (no grass clippings yet) and spray and turn and spray and I'm confident that it will be fine. It works every other year.

Karen

Sometimes a peat based potting mix has a wetting agent added.

I had some peat once, and it did pretty good with buckets of wash water (dog, car, dishes, whatever) that had a bit of soap in it. Not a lot of soap, mind you. But it's a pain until it really gets incorporated with the soil and other organic matter.

Well, I probably overstated my surprise at the word 'mist', but pure peat is a real pain to soak. if you put it in a wheelbarrow filled with water, you can stir it and stir it and stir it and you'll still have huge hunks of dry peat popping up for a long time during the process. It takes a very long time to moisten a wheelbarrow of peat and a wheelbarrow can only hold about 1/6 of a peat bale---if that---at a time. I've soaked it in the bale and that's difficult and I used to make pits in my garden and soak the peat in the pit---also a pain.

Not organic but if you put a squirt or two of liquid dishwashing stuff in a hose end sprayer then spray the peat the stuff acts like a wetting agent. Breaks down the surface tension on the peat. Use only small squirts not the hefty two second kind. This will allow the peat to absorb water.

Jumping in here with a quick question: since peat moss seems to present so many problems, what is it good for, and can one simply skip it altogether?

"can one simply skip it altogether?"

I haven't used it in years.

I don't use peat in lasagna or anywhere else. But potting mix is often peat based and hard to wet. Some are worse than others, it probably depends on what wetting agent is used and/or how much of it. Pro-mix is one of my favorites, germination is good, and it's pretty cost effective in the compressed bales. However it takes forever to wet. I often use a little Ivory soap if I don't want to spend a lifetime on it.

I don't use peat or peat based products for anything else though.

Karen

I tried the lasagna garden a few years ago if you want to call it that. I layed 4-5 layers of newspaper down and got it wet. Then I put two feet of grass clippings and wet everything real good. I didn't do anything else for 3-4 weeks. By that time everything had settled to 4-6 inches deep. The grass had turned brown and the temps were cooling. By the time I set the Tomatoes out 6 weeks after I started the garden, things were perfect.
I know there's people out there saying this Idaho guy is crazy but I feel it's differant strokes for differant folks and what ever works for you is good for you.
I don't ness. think everyone should try this but hey!! it has worked for me now for 3 years.

I planted potatoes in that bed this season. When I dug up the ripe potatoes I was also digging up solid pieces of cardboard. Earlier in the year I was preparing the bed for planting. The newspaper I used in one part of the bed was intact despite being buried under all manner of organic material; I could still read it quite clearly.

On the plus side, the soil looked good. I have covered it with unfinished compost and mulched that with grass clippings. I'm betting that bed will be in excellent shape next spring.

Of the three methods I've used, lasagna, double-digging and tilling, the double digging worked best, but was the most work.

Count me as another who has had no luck with the lasagna beds. I find it extremely impractical for any sort of large-scale gardening.

Unless you have a massive property to collect the materials from its nearly impossible to get the shredded leaves and the grass clippings (free stuff that you don't have to hunt down and import), together in the same place at the same time to fill more than a small bed.

If you don't make it several feet tall so as to get good composting action going it takes forever to decompose -- especially on sandy soil where it doesn't stay moist or in cold climates where its frozen (and thus not decomposing), for much of the winter.

I suppose it works OK for people who meet a fairly narrow set of criteria -- right climate, right soil, convenient availability of free greens and browns in the correct proportions, who need only a small amount of garden space as opposed to those trying to produce a significant amount of the produce for a family for a full year, and who are content to wait several years before even attempting to direct seed small-seeded crops -- or for people who can substitute money for some or all of the above.

But my experience is that its nowhere near the miracle method its frequently claimed to be.

Some elements of the technique are adaptable to my gardening needs though. Newspaper and cardboard are EXCELLENT sod-smotherer. And I make use of my half-composted, cold piles by growing squash, melons, sweetpotatoes, and such other items that tolerate ultra-coarse soil on them as they finish.

But making an entire garden of nothing but partially-finished, cold-compost piles presents major challenges in accumulating the materials and the willingness to wait a long time before seeing any real return on the investment of time and energy (and money if you had to buy materials).

Hi.
I tried lasagna gardening for the 1st time this year with crazy great results.
in the 1st bed i put down card board then 9 wheel barrels of hot composts.i watered it to cool it down and planted shasta daisys and sweet williams the same day. boy did they flop and cry for a week. after that i couldn't believe how great they did.
also did another bed same way and planted seedling. they didn't flop or cry and grew like crazy. did a total of 6 beds that way. had one bad experience. not enough compost.
only 2wheel barrels full.
the bed was right on top of a thick layer of shale. the area was about 2ft wide by 6ft long. i knew that was wrong but i was out of compost and i couldn't afford soil.
But it's been raining a lot this year. that probably had a lot to do with my success.
my compost was 50% what ever i could get my hands on and50% aged horse bedding. oh and i mulched with dried grass clippings. that might have helped too.
don't give up yet!
I love it.

It seems like lasagna beds work well where the rainfall and humidity allow the continuous decomposition. Places like the NorthEast and the Pacific NorthWest would be good.

Gardening in Idaho is not hard, but techniques that work elsewhere don't do so well here. The upside to gardening in my area; I don't have the hordes of critters to contend with.

My sister in Connecticut has problems with chipmunks, groundhogs, deer and a variety of insects. But she can build lasagna beds and have it work. I don't have the same issue with hungry mammals, and I am controlling the insects without much effort so far. But I couldn't make lasagna gardening work for me.

Lasagna gardens work WITHOUT peatmoss just fine anywhere. But if that stuff dries out, it's like plastic shavings and never re-hydrates without special effort.

To re-hydrate it, make a diluted solution of soap and water - a tablespoon or so for every 5 gallons or so of water - and sprinkle it over the bed evenly. The soap breaks down the waxy coating on the peat and then water can get in.

I realize the idea of lasagna is to layer things, but I think mixing up your ingredients would help them wet up better, and stay damp.

Deanna