So are you hoping to plant a garden in leaves and coffee grounds? Here in Maine, what you would have six months later is an area covered with leaves and coffee grounds in almost the exact same condition that you laid them down. The reason that soil-less lasagna beds (sometimes) work is because the plants survive in the deep mulch until their root systems penetrate the newspaper layers and find soil. If your newspaper layer is too thick, your plants will not be able to find soil to grow in. No plants grow in leaves and coffee grounds. If you don't make your cardboard or newspaper layer too thick, you will probably do all right.

(And, if you want a weed-free garden, put your newspaper on the top of your bed, not the bottom.)

Is anyone else going to respond? I've created new beds with deep mulch, but I'm more of a skeptic about the process than some of you are. I hope that someone more encouraging will respond to didz.

I'm still a novice, but I have a heavy blue clay soil that is difficult to get anything but grass and weeds to grow in. Based on discussions on here that I read I did an experimental lasagna bed. I used leaves (not shredded) straw, horse manure, and sawdust that had been used as bedding. I also added some unfinished compost. I piled all of those on top of single sheets/layer of cardboard as I got the materials together, so there wasn't any particular order to them. I put the bed together in the fall and by spring it was already decomposing.

The soil under that bed no longer looks like clay. It is lighter in weight and darker in appearance. And it grows plants.

So I believe in lasagna beds, though I understand that they don't help all soils. If you are asking if you should make a lasagna bed, I would have to answer that you won't know if it will work on your soil unless you try it. If you are looking for suggestions, I would suggest that you also look for some manure to add to your bed. Of course this forum has also convinced me of the benifits of using manures in my gardens, and I have found they do help my soil. The more diverse organic products that you put into the soil, the nutrientents you are adding to the soil. So don't limit yourself to just leaves and coffee grounds.

When you build a Lasagna bed you are building a fertile soil for the future. While many people do grow good crops in a fairly fresh Lasagna bed it is the years down the road where the best results are seen, after the bacteria have done their work on the material you piled up. Originally Lasagna beds were built up using peat moss but many people have found that too expensive and have also found that leaves are more readily available and are better. Since you understand the basics follow them now and next spring you will be pleasantly surprised by what happens.

I don't have an answer but I have a question. When people talk about planting in the "lasagna" garden, are they talking about placing seedlings with a root ball of some kind attached? I don't see how a person could get good germination of just seeds in a 'fresh' lasagna bed.

I'm not a gardener but last spring DW talked me into putting down a couple yards of compost then covering that with cardboard and then covering that with straw. I now have a nice weed free area of straw covering the ground. The only way I can see to seed it would be to pull all the straw back to get at the soil area. Unless I went with seedlings.

Lloyd

I have made several lasagne beds using those exact ingredients - cardboard/paper, coffee grounds, and leaves. I lay down a double layer of cardboard, then a thin layer (less than 1 inch) of coffee grounds/filters, and then spread about 3 inches of leaves on top. (Don't pile the coffee grounds too thick they will clump together - however, even when I over-applied the UCGs they broke down eventually anyway.) You can continue with more layers, or let that decompose. I've added grass clippings, another thin layer of coffee grounds, garden debris, or any odd organic materials onto some beds.

Here it takes about 6 months - 1 year for the sod/weeds underneath to completely die, and for the bed to become reasonably workable. If you plant in the bed before the soil is workable, I would mix some soil in the planting hole to ensure good contact for the roots of your transplants.

My largest lasagne bed was 2 years old this past season, and the plants grew to gargantuan proportions (between the rain and the rich soil). The Joe Pye weed was 10 feet tall. The Monarda wants to take over the countryside. All I've done so far is add a little leaf mulch to the bed.

Here's a pic that gives you an idea how large the plants grew in that bed -

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I personally would not consider coffee grounds and leaves an adequate variety of ingredients for a lasagna bed. I would strongly urge you to come up with some other stuff. Animal manure of almost any kind would be helpful.

I am baffled by the idea of letting it sit for 6 months to a year. If I am organized enough in the fall to pile up all the layers, fine, but I have often built them in the spring and used them within a week. You just need to sprinkle compost or some type of soil on the top if you want to sow seeds. Otherwise just put little pockets of compost or soil around your plant roots. Generally you can plant instantly in a lasagna bed. But so many leaves with just coffee grounds, that just doesn't sound like enough stuff to me.

If you are just putting down cardboard and some leaves over it, and hoping to loosen up the soil underneath to grow in, that really isn't a lasagna bed. In a lasagna bed the roots may eventually go down into the underlying soil, but the bed should be deep enough to contain most of the roots right there. The main ingredients for my beds are leaves, horse manure, and large quantities of old produce (peaches, bananas, grapes, etc.), plus some weeds and wood ash.

Marcia

Linked below is what Pat Lanza has to say about this gardening style.

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

Hi Marcia, why do you think you need more variety? That combo seems to work great for me.

I am baffled by the idea of letting it sit for 6 months to a year

I am usually creating garden beds where there are thick weeds, Vinca minor, woody invasives, and tree roots and find the easiest way to deal with this is to chop it down as much as possible and sheet compost. It is easier to plant when the vegetation and roots underneath have died back and the organic matter in the bed has broken down to more even consistency (thus easier to mix). It would be difficult for new plantings or seedlings to compete with thick weeds and roots prior to that.

If I want to plant in a bed right away, I seem to end up digging most of the bed anyway, because I plant closely and tend to fuss a bit over the placement of the plants.

De-lurking to share my lasagna gardening experience, hi everyone!

I have done lasagna gardening for 2 years now with great results, each time creating the bed and then planting within a week (moved the winter after I started the first lasagna beds).

I have had good luck with this method and plant right away, but I add compost and worm castings along with coir so there is a soil like consistency. I cover with a layer of mulch and just pull back the mulch to plant in the top layer of castings/coir. Next time, I'm going to leave my things like lettuce uncovered by mulch until they germinate for a little easier germination. Didn't think of that until after mulching this year.

I put down cardboard or newspaper first and then thin layers of coir, straw, soaked alfalfa pellets, compost and castings. I've had bad luck with grass clippings so I no longer add them - my first year there was a lot of grass happily growing among my veggies. My beds that I created in late April/early May are very nicely broken down and look like really rich soil, still very fluffy and loose. The plants roots stay mainly above the bed but mine are mounded up at least 12 inches to start so it's much like a raised bed.

I just 2 days ago added another bed to my yard - being organized enough to do this in fall instead of spring for the first time ever! I used composted horse manure, leaves, straw, soaked alfalfa pellets, worm castings, coir and my own compost pile from the last 10 months. I also topped off the existing bed. The new bed is about 18 inches.

I'm planning on adding worm castings and compost again in the spring before planting, but I'm excited about everything getting a little broken down in advance this time. This is also the first time I've had leaves available to put in the beds because before I was always doing this in spring.

Almost forgot, I supplement my beds with Epsoma products - Garden Tone and Tomato Tone.

To the original poster, I would suggest adding some compost or castings to your layers of UCG and leaves. I think you'll be fine with what you've got but I find the straw also helps break up the mass of leaves so they don't clump so much.

Good luck!

Here's another ezample of a lasagna garden done in the fall or around this time and then planted in the spring...

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I used cardboard - wet it down first - then layers of UCGs, shredded leaves, seaweed, a bit of soil, a wet bale of hay/straw which had been out for a year, more UCGs, etc. I placed 2 feet of material, covered with burlap for the winter, and then planted in the spring. The worm population in this area was zilcho when I made the lasagna bed, but in the spring I kept apologizing at every move to the newcomers of which there was so many it made me smile at every turn. The above photo was taken year two.

This bed is constantly used for new-to-me plants and seedlings.

Below is another photo of a lasagna bed which was established on the front of our property.

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I don't have access to real animal manure here in florida, is the cow manure sold in bags at the box stores any good?

That cattle manure sold in the stores comes from the feed lots at slaughter houses, mostly. Those cattle are fed large amounts of antibiotics, to aid in keeping them healthy and also to aid in weight gain, and the manure would have quite a bit of those antibiotics which may or may not be something you would wish to add to your soil.

Thank you so much for your responses! I was a bit discouraged at first, but now that I've seen some pictures, Im ready to start piling!

(Shame Im stuck on hospital bedrest.. Somehow I don't think hubby boy would be as keen as I to go out and start piling things up...)

When I get home, I might manage to do a hack job on the area I want. I need to empty out one of my composters anyway.. so I'll add that to the ingredients list, and see if there's some way to sweet talk the one and only person I know who owns horses. *Grins*

You gave a bored hospital bound gardener something to smile about. Thankyou!

I've also been using only free ingredients--leaves, grass clippings, UCG's, and homemade compost. I don't have access to manure. So far, I find I can plant beans in the new beds, with great results. I recently planted garlic and kohlrabi in a bed made in July and planted in bush beans until the fall (now ripped out). They seem to be growing nicely. That bed also had a very healthy volunteer tomato plant, even when new and planted with beans.

My latest fall-made bed, planted with kohlrabi transplants that had no where else to go, is not growing well, despite a warm fall. Lettuce planted in 1" of soil on top of a new section of bed is growing slowly compared to the lettuce in the second year lasagna soil right next to it. It seems to me it depends on what kind of plants you are trying to grow in the new beds. In spring, I plan to try peas in most of the new beds I made this fall. I'm assuming they will do well like the beans, because of not needing nitrogen from the soil. Lettuce needs a lot of nitrogen. Kohlrabi may be having trouble with the pH of the new beds, probably a bit on the acidic side.

I am encouraged by kimmsr's comment that we are building good soil for the long term future. I look forward to years down the line. I have been gardening in clay with top-dressed amendments for years with moderate success, and plenty of disappointments--weak plants, just generally not lush, rampant growth like I see in gardens with really super soil. I think the lasagna method may really improve the productivity of my garden.

hepatica

Terrene, the reason you have to wait so long for your lasagna beds to become "workable" may be because the quantity and type of things you use (leaves and UCG mostly you said) won't tend to compost together very fast. My mix of leaves, horse manure, and old produce is more like an actual compost pile content, and the stuff breaks down more quickly and starts acting like soil fairly quickly.

I have been doing serious vegie gardening the past 17 years and mostly raised beds the past 5. I find that the very first year I get fabulous results, and as long as I top off each bed each year I continue to get good results.

Terrene: "It is easier to plant when the vegetation and roots underneath have died back and the organic matter in the bed has broken down to more even consistency (thus easier to mix). It would be difficult for new plantings or seedlings to compete with thick weeds and roots prior to that."

I have serious perennial weeds in my yard, quack grass and wildflowers and assorted weeds. But what is under the cardboard is not relevant to what is in my raised lasagna beds. They range from 8 to 15 inches tall, and their roots are completely above the cardboard layer, at least in the first year. So I see no reason to wait for anything to happen underneath. I use my raised beds mostly for vegies, perhaps if you have something else in mind like large shrubs then it would make a difference. Also, if you are doing perennials as you show in your photo (nice garden - I love monarda) it is good to wait for the layers to break down first since you can't top up the bed each year very well because it has all the plants still in it.

Marcia