Since last summer, I only use lasagna beds to cover lawn areas. If there are tree roots, I dig and till to remove them, but still use the lasagna bed method over the top. If it were me, I'd just plant some trailing annuals along the "hump" and forget about it til next year when you can level out the two areas.

token do you edge your lasagna beds? I did not edge the ones I did in the back and side yards but this one is right out front along the road. I want curves on these beds and cant decide if I want to use some kind of border or not.

Can someone please help me? I forgot where the lasagna bed forum is. I have a question that I want to ask. Or maybe, someone here can help me.

Will this work?

5. compost bought from HD, Lowes, etc
4. grass clippings from my lawn
3. manure
2. grass clippings from my lawn
1. overlapping cardboard

The cardboard being the first layer.

Thanks,

Neil

Your grass is a green and so is your manure (I am thinking, it has been a while since I have looked at my Lasagna Gardening book) you might want to find some more browns to add to the mix like leaves or straw and such. but really almost anything works.
I did my flower beds with nothing but leaves and grass clipping and they do great. I did a tomato patch also and added some peat layers and the tomatoes grew taller that the metal out building they were standing next to.

http://video.about.com/organicgardening/Build-a-No-Dig-Garden.htm

Garden crazy, I have been edging my beds as I find more rocks in the yard and naturalized gully that runs along the edge of the house. The perennial bed is completely edged. Others have some rocks, but are not complete. I started from scratch last spring creating these beds.

This was the day I looked at the house before buying it.

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This was last fall when I had finished installing the last of the composted leaves before edging. I removed all the shrubs and the mosquito pool. I used newspaper and cardboard over the grass and laid out the beds across the summer creating the path.

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This was taken last week. All the edging is in place. I hauled rocks from the potager area I had to till. It was overgrown with small trees and lots of vines. The rocks came out of the ground here. With so much stone in the soil, lasagna beds are the best choice. I'll add another couple of inches each year until I get a really deep compost.

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Neil, you should have a lot more brown than green in your mix. Too much green will give you beautiful foliage, but no flowers. Ask the 6' tall cosmos I grew last year. Some of them never flowered but grew into HUGE plants.

You could shred some newspaper to add some brown, any left over leaves from fall could be chopped and added too. My bed is full of those. I think dryer lint counts as brown though you would need a lot.

Token that area is coming along beautifully.

Ok, I will put more brown then. I usually leave the grass clippings in a bag and then after few months, they dry and color turns like hay color. This is the one I need right?

Also, am I correct that if I build a lasagna bed in summer, I will be able to use it 2010?

Thanks.

Neil, your grass clippings are considered brown IF they are completely dried out. You can spread them out on the driveway for a couple days if you want to speed it along.

I planted some things in my beds within a couple weeks of having them in place. But they will be better this year than last for sure.

Token, I like your curves in your bed. mine are all to square and straight. I want to expand to give some nice curved shapes and I need more space for all of my jug babies that are popping up.
Neil, the book says you can plant in beds right away. (I always have but they have always been good sized plants.) but they probably are better the following year after some composting has taken place.
I was thinking I could just make the layers and plop the babies in right away. Would that be a bad idea? Has anyone ever tried that?

Gardencrazy,
So,you will be making new beds,around your existing beds,correct?So you will be creating a bed-with-in a bed?

This is what i will be doing also this year,i am thinking of making a path in between the beds,with some stone or mulch,or a trellis separating the beds,to look like an invitation to go beyond,make an entry way,so to speak.
I am in a delima like you.:0)
I think it is ok to have the ground at different levels,you can always plant accourding to height,shrubs,what ever.
I hope it will come out well for the both of us,:0)
Will you be posting a picture when you are done?I hope so.
I will be planting right through my cardboard,top dressed with some mulch.
cAROL

I am thinking of trying out this lasagna garden thing also. I can't bear to dig with a shovel to remove sod. Is it okay to mulch over existing perennials using this method? Should I cut holes/circles in the cardboard around the perennials so they won't get smothered?

Gladys

Hi Gladys,
Every thing you cover with the cardboard will be killed-as in dead.
So ya better cut around every thing you want to keep. :0)
It's that easy.
cAROL

Dried out grass remains a N or green. A little N may gas off as it dries, but it's still high in N. You need straw or leaves or woodchips or sawdust...

Karen

Gardencrazy last year I extended the edges of a garden bed by flipping the sod w/ pitch fork and tucking in all grass. It was hard work I had intended to do more & will go it again this spring.

I created a holding raised bed the same way but had compost,cg and dirt fro back that I wheel barreled down. I planted in that a few weeks latter. It worked great.

I tried to expand another bed via the lasagna method-last fall. I peeked at it last week before more snow came. I still have cardboard on bottom. did not look in center thou hopefully it is broken down there. Think I did not layer properly??/

cAROL I put paths in "my garden" last year making 4 separate areas. Looks awesome gives it a finished look and is inviting. GD loves to run up paths and stays off flowers now. I used rocks collected around boundary of property-old stone walls. The rocks are about the size of a big fist. Then filled w/ wood chips from town barn. The paths are about 1&1/2' wide. I can get my wheel barrel up them. I used pine needles to mulch the beds. It was one of my best ideas lol really looks great.

Annette

Karen,

It seems that you are correct, maybe. Some people think dried grass is a green, some think it's brown, and many think it's somewhere in between with a lot more green than brown.

green or brown?

I could swear I have read that once dry, it's brown...but the definition of dry is arguable.

So, to be safe, I'd treat dried grass as a green. Dead leaves are always a brown, right?