Build Great Garden Soil with Lasagna Gardening

Put yard waste to work and improve your soil with Pat Lanza’s lasagna gardening.

Measure your garden bed. A 4 x 8 foot wide bed allows easy access and is a manageable size for most gardeners.  Cover the area with moist newspaper. Wet newspaper tends to stay in place even on those windy days. Add a handful of soil just to be sure.

Next add a 2 to 3 inch layer of peat moss or compost. Top this with 4 to 8 inches of plant debris such as leaves. Sprinkle a bit of fertilizer over this layer. Repeat the layers, just like making lasagna, until your garden is 18 to 24 inches high.

You can plant immediately. Plant transplants in your lasagna garden as you normally would.  For seeds, sprinkle compost or potting mix on top of the beds and plant.

As you can see we had a productive garden our first season.

A bit more information: Use leaves and evergreen needles as mulch in the garden. Spread a 2 to 3 inch layer over the soil surface. You’ll suppress weeds, conserve moisture and improve the soil as the materials decompose.