It is described in a FAQ on one of the forums, but I forget which, hopefully someone else posts it.

Anyway, it is basically using organic materials like leaves, grass, compost and other stuff piled up over an area one wishes to plant in.

Let's say you have an area where grass is growing and you want to turn it into a garden area. One way to do it is to get a rototiller and chop up the earth, killing the grass. Another way is the lasagna method which involves smothering the existing vegetation by placing thick layers of newspaper or sheets of cardboard over the area. This kills the vegetation. On top of the paper or cardboard the organic stuff is placed several inches thick.

Some like to do this in the fall for a spring planting, but others have planted directly into the organic material immediately with good results. Over the course of a season the paper / cardboard decomposes and allows plant roots to grow through to the soil. The organic material also breaks down into compost and conditions the soil underneath.

It is much easier on the back than a roto tiller or digging and since any new area should be enriched with compost anyway it is just a much easier way to prepare garden beds.

I have used many methods to prepare areas for planting and I find that the lasagna method makes the most sense for me, but the other methods have their merits as well. Digging or tilling, for example, is about the only way to remove rocks from a rocky area.

Patricia Lanza more-or-less invented the term to describe her method of gardening, in books she has written on the subject. Old-time organic gardeners are familiar with the process, known to them as 'sheet composting' and used most often over larger areas than Lanza's. IMHO, Lanza's main contribution was showing that the method works well in small areas, and in popularizing an effective means of soil improvement.

There are nearly as many variations of lasagna as there are chili recipes, but basically one has a section of land and desires to improve the soil quickly and easily. Tilling is not recommended and even the stoniest land does not need to have the rocks removed unless they are humongeous and in a location where trees, shrubs or deep-rooted plants are desired. A finished lasagna bed is usually treated as a "raised" bed, that is, the growing soil is on *top* of the starting soil [which only the longer roots will reach]. One can, of course, build lasagna in a hole rather than planning on a raised area -- in those cases, large stone removal is needed but small stones and gravel are usually returned to the bottom of the hole to improve drainage.

Trees, shrubs and stiff greenery are cut down or worked around (with cautions) to start the process. Most folks find more time is spent locating the needed materials than in the actual making of gardener's lasagna. An astounding volume of material will be required... so plan to start small to become accustomed to the amounts needed.

The bottom-most layer is made of sopping-wet cardboard (not corrugated) or newspaper, usually to 1/4 or 1/2-inch+ thickness. The extra thickness is desirable where there are many weeds, thick grass, or briars. From there on, one just piles up alternates layers of 'green' [grass clippings, weeds, kitchen scraps, etc.] with layers of 'brown' [dried leaves, sawdust, non-shiny paper, etc.]. Brown layers may need to be watered to bring them to a damp consistency. Each layer is usually an inch or two thick, and the finishing time can be sped up by sprinkling bloodmeal or alfalfa bits over each brown layer and spreading soil (sprinkling, clumps or a full layer) between layers of green and brown. The finished pile should be at least 12" high, but it's better when it is more than 18" in height. The topmost layer should always be 2-3" mulch such as shredded leaves or bark. The layers will decompose fairly rapidly, turning into a composty soil in about a year (depending on the ingredients used).

Things to consider: the lasagna should be always be kept dampish; the finished height/thickness usually shrinks to about 1/4th [a bed that starts at 16" of lasagna will be about 4" thick the next year]; and - most importantly- you are providing materials for the microbes and earthworms to use in making soil: don't poison them. Edging the lasagna bed is desirable, especially in grassy areas.

Everything else is optional... you can even plant in a new, raw lasagna by troweling a hole for each plant. Just be sure that the rootball is surrounded with an inch of good soil or compost. By the time the plant's new roots reach through that inch, the lasagna won't be raw. I have found that many annuals are quite fond of new lasagna and will out-perform their peers who are in established beds.

You should be able to find more info by using "lasagna" in the search block at the bottom of the lead page in this forum, and in the Square Foot Gardening forum.

There is another variation of sheet composting called interbay mulch. With this method, the sheet compost is made and covered with burlap over winter.

However, I have made sheet compost/lasangna beds and planted on top of it immediately with great results.

I topped off the composting materials with garden soil. When planting, I displaced the soil and fresh composting materials, made a soil pocket in the compost and planted, making sure that the roots did not come directly in contact with the compost.

My vegetable garden is growing so well we are up to our neck with harvest. :-D

Please check out the Soil, Compost, Mulch forum. There are many good suggestions and discussions on this subject. The FAQ gives a vast suggestions on composting ingredients. It really is fun and not labor intensive at all.

This link tells you about interbay mulch. It also gives a list of ingredients that can be used in any method of composting.

Here is a link that might be useful: Composting ingredients

My place is a rental and my landlord likes things low-maintenance. Hence, what isn't lawn or concrete, it is thick heavy landscape plastic and bark mulch on top. Alas, the mulch is getting penetrated by some very tough characters in the plant world and starting to break down. It is still tough as nails though. I want to make a lasagna bed, because darnit, ME WANT BULBS AND FLOWERS! There are also perrenial shrubs, all very generic looking growing through them. There is one spot however that just has overgrown dead grass and thick thatch(?) on it at the base. The shovel BOUNCES off it! HOw do I deal with this uber-plastic and the thatch? dynamite? LOL. Just mulch on top?

triple b - don't bother with either shovel or dynamite, just lasagna on top of the thatch. Just make it an extra high pile, and assume that it will have lousy drainage - put a 2" layer of coarse gravel on top of the bottom-most paper layer and then lasagna as usual. The gravel will provide the drainage. Most bulbs want good drainage, so you can improve their new home by putting an inch or two of gravel or crushed oyster shells immediately below the bulb when you plant. Just don't forget that finished lasagna shrinks in height, so while it will be okay to plant to put in bulbs as soon as you finish making the lasagna, plant the bulbs much deeper than you would in a finished bed. Several years ago, I put Palmares daffodils in the bottom of a 15" tall lasagna (actually on top of the bottom layer of gravel). The first spring following the blooms were about 3 weeks later than normal (the lasagna was still about 10" high), but since then they have bloomed at the normal time, and in fact, the lasagna has shrunk down so much that I need to replace it this fall because the bulbs are only a couple inches below the soil's surface.

Meldy,

Thanks for the tips. That's sort of what I was planning to do this weekend with my backyard. I had zoysia grass and clay soil that no minor bulbs could grow through.

Last March, I covered the entire area with layers of cardboards and newspapers, then mulched over the papers. I replenished the papers several times over the summer, but the grass is still not dead. I was going to plant large bulbs into the soil anyway, figuring Daffodils tolerate moisture and clay soil. I planned to add gravel in the planting hole. I will renew the cardboards, just a layer maybe, layer gravel on top of the cardboards, plant minor and miniature bulbs then just dump top soil on the bulbs, cover with a thin layer of newspapers/cardboard then replace the mulch.That should work fine. Cardboards and the paper will disintegrate by spring time to allow the bulbs to push through. That's my plan. I know for a fact that papers decompose quite fast from the experience this summer.

If the grass still won't die, I'll have to use Round up on the d thing next summer.

Thanks again.

P.S. I once dumped 2 ft of leaves on top of my flower bed. Everything that was able to push through proved its worth in the garden. The daffodils were not able to push through the following spring, but came back strong in subsequent years. Hooray for sheet compost!

Zoysia can usually be whupped by starting off with a 1/2" of sopping wet newspaper - I will say that is a LOT of paper! Cardboard is okay but not the corrugated for the bottom layer. I dunno why but maybe those ziggyzags let too much air through, something anyhow cuz others have commented that corrugated is okay midway but not good for bottom-most layer. Don't forget that zoysia, like so many grasses will happily creep back into the lasagna from the edges, so if you really want to keep it out, the bed needs a non-permeable edging at least 3" down and a couple (or more) inches up. I prefer to use at least 8" tall edging and maintain the bed as being raised.

BTW, if you want a head start on killing off the zoysia, just pout near-to-boiling water over it. Lots, lots less damaging to the environment than a chemical herbicide. Just handle the hot water with respect and don't splash it. A flamer is also effective, but not everyone has one of those.

sorry to nitpick, but I would imagine the worms and bugs would prefer roundup be used than their having to be scalded with boiling water. Just trying to represent those adorable little garden helpers without internet access or capable of using a keyboard ;-)

Differing opinion on that, username5. I've never found a dead earthworm after using the hot water, but take a good look in the soil after using RU... no, don't. You really shouldn't play in dirt that has been RU'd. Just read up on it a bit, there are lots of scientific reports published within the past three years (watch the date -- due to improvements in testing materials and often based on long-term studies, recent reports may differ greatly from reports of 6 or more years ago).

The steaming water is poured over the greenery to simmer the leaves' cell structure (just like a flamer's effect), and is usually comparatively cool in a quite short time. I too worried about the worms, but on actually checking, I found the water raised soil temperature to less than 90* one inch below soil surface after pouring a pint of steaming water in the middle of a dandelion - that's more than six times as much water as I usually use, and it provided less heat than the soil gets from the sun on a summer day. I suspect the earthworms are in more danger from the shovel or trowel :)

Right on Meldy_nVA!