Depending on thickness, the grass could mat when wet and make an anearobic nightmare. Either layer it relatively thin, or put it on top, or mix it with the loam.

Cardboard on the bottom is good.

Are you sure you want a garden where there's no water available?

Along the same thought, depending on how high you build the layers, it can take a heck of a lot of rain to soak through that stuff and wet the cardboard.

Are you talking 20 CUBIC YARDS of grass clippings? That's a heckuva lot. You'd need a lot of browns with it, too. How big is your bed going to be?

Karen

kq- It's an "Adopt-a-Spot" for the city. Businesses 'adopt' the city-owned properties, get our name on a placard, and a 2-year agreement to maintain & beautify the areas. Ironic thing is: There is a fire hydrant 10 feet away on the curb- DOH!

Rain...when it DOES rain, it POURS, like twice a week, so that's what I'm counting on over the summer.

The area is 1600 square feet. According to online calculators, it'll take 7 yards for a minimum 2" light mulch top dressing, and the construction guy that came to look at the site said it would take up to 20 yards to fill the area, so that's my plan. It simply cannot be planted in as it exists. I also plan to add other browns to offset the grass clippings...not sure if that's going to have to wait til leaves start falling, or if I can actually FIND somewhere that still has leaves on the ground that I can rake up.
It's just taking so long to get the materials together & coordinate it all without passers-by calling the city and telling them I'm starting my own dump (actually I HAVE permission from the city to do lasagna)...frustrating to say the least. So I'm blowing what little budget we have on amendments, and figured the grass & cardboard would serve as an 'ok' foundation with the purchased loam/compost mix on top.

So that's where I'm at. Sigh.

Sounds pretty cool, as long as you (and the future gardeners at the site) can count on that rain.

I'd give anything for twice a week rain. We actually went about 6 weeks with NONE this summer.

Karen

How about getting some local businesses to save their shredded paper or one of those truck mounted paper shredding companies to drop a load off for adding browns to it. Some good shredded trees would work as well from a tree trimming company.

Good luck on the project. Sounds like a lot of work but for a good cause.

ooo- good one, jrup! We actually have a shredder-company come in occasionally...I'll hit them up, and steal the shreads from the portable one in the office next to me.

My DH bought a cross cut shredder and has been supplying me with confetti sized shredded paper. If you can get cross cut it is much better than the old type shredder paper. I put a lasagna bed in early this spring with a layer of old leaves, manure, grass clippings and shredded paper. Planted tomatoes and squash -- I call them my Godzilla plants and I haven't had to water them at all this year. The rest of my garden is totally dried out. Good luck with your project.

Are the grass clippings herbicide free? Or will they have a long time to sit in case they are full of 2-4D or other herbicides?

What about putting up a small sign explaining the project to avoid the dump calls?

Cheers,
Michelle

Hi Michelle-
Dunno about the herbicides...they don't use them on our office grass, but dunno what everyone else is doing. It's not a 'Tru-Chem' company, just a local guy.

Yes, I plan on putting up some sort of notice...maybe leaflets or something...to let the public know what's transpiring over there. Will reference this website, and maybe a couple other places specifically for lasagna instruction.

This is interesting because I'm doing something similar--smaller scale longer time period. How deep do you hope the layers will be over the gravel base? Is your base compacted sand/gravel? What kind of plantings will you do in the new lasagna layers? Good luck and I would be interested in hearing more of your ideas for the project.

Last year I used what was available to me which was cardboard and grass. Not nearly as much as you are using. This spring some volunteer tomatoes and cleome sprouted from seed in the thin top layer and are doing well. I don't have a time limit so I will continue to add more layers as OM becomes available.

Many tree cutting companies will deliver random wood chips for free from their shredding, that would be a great thing to mix in with the grass clippings so that they aren't too matted and smelly. But otherwise your plan sounds pretty good. I suppose for that size it would be hard to get enough coffee grounds from Starbucks to do much good, but just flinging in some to give some variety to the grass clippings might help. And if you can layer the grass clippings and loam/compost mix that would help, too, don't want the grass clippings very thick.

Most lawn companies use some kind of herbicide I would imagine, you should ask questions.

I made a new raised bed for this year's gardening, it is about 115 sq. feet and over a foot tall. The tomatoes, eggplant, melons, and peppers are all growing SO much better there than in the rest of my garden.

Marcia

Thanks everyone for your input! I'm hoping to add to the mix later on this fall when the leaves start dropping, and the city hopefully will sponsor another compost giveaway day like they did last spring & fall. That will definitely give me a better thickness.

Currently, I'm working on about a 6-8" layer of 'stuff,' and will hope for more as I can get leaves. Course, then I'll have to worry about shredding those to add to the mix, and putting them down...another chore.

The site is hot & dry, so mulch will be a have-to thing. Budget constraints will not allow it for this year, but that's ok; I won't have to worry about moving it if I add to the mix later on. The base- yes, it's compacted soil & gravel. Yesterday as I was moving a shrub I found a bed spring in there, and another piece of metal. My guess is it's another one of those "throw-whatever-we-have-available-into-it-just-to-build-the-road" sites, and there's more where that came from. Needless to say, I re-planted that particular shrub slightly shallower, and put new loam/compost around it.

I layered the grass clippings about 2" only...hopefully that won't be too thick. And started to 'mix' the loam/compost with them just in case.

The pile of loam is huge. 15 yards...we have a small team of 4 going up tomorrow to move some more of it, and I'll do some again today. Tedious work to say the least. No power-equipment to do the job. All by hand/shovel. I broke my pitchfork yesterday, too. Had to get another one this morning on my way to work. Sigh.

Plantings will include maintenance-free wild-flowers such as shastas, Queen Anne's lace (a nice filler & reseeder), daylilies, coneflowers, gloriosa daisy, other Ruds...that sort of thing. There are 8 beds in the design, and the space is triangle-shaped with the 'point' of the triangle at the back, so there's a long (89 feet) of sidewalk frontage. A strategically placed 'tree' of some sort donnes the center of the space...that works. Here's the plan:

{{gwi:4873}}

Those little shrubbies are Yews, and many of them need to be moved out of the new pathways. They were originally 'installed' checker-board style...just dotting the space. I have no clue what some of the other low-growing (& totally misshapen) shrubs are, but most of those will either be removed or re-located in the space where they won't be seen much...just to take up space so we don't have to plant as much right away. There's about 6 forsythias, too. MY plan is to get rid of the smaller mis-shapen ones entirely, but we don't have enough fillers yet to do that. Later.

I'll winter-sow all of the annuals (marigolds mostly only cuz they are easy and come in a variety of colors & sizes) to save on that cost. I have several sources of perennial donations, and places & can divide stuff like ditch-lilies & coneflowers, and my own spaces need some re-working, so I can donate some things.

So that's the initial plan. Subject to change without notice ;)

Being in my drought area, I can't imagine gardening with NO water nearly. I realize those are drought tolerant plants but... can you really count on enought rain to get that stuff going and keep it alive? Do I understand that there's never going to be water available?

(or just eternal optimist meets pessimist?)

Karen

Karen, you crack me up. Funny thing is, I am a cynic/pessimist by nature, but when it comes to gardening, my motto is: "You WILL grow, dammit!"

Because this project is essentially 'mine,' I will take responsibility for hauling up some water to the site at least weekly. A task, indeed, but I got myself into this mess, I need to see it through to fruition. Did I tell you there was a fire hydrant not 10-feet from the site? LOL! So yeah, I'll have to keep a stash of milk-jugs around to do this chore every week. No matter. I really enjoy gardening...every aspect of it, including weeding (but that's at the bottom of the list), so I do it.

Besides, my other favorite phrase is: "I told you so!!!"

I'm up to the challenge.

?

Do you get water from the hydrant? [puzzled]

I didn't know that was possible.....

Patty- No, that's the whole irony of the situation is all.