Lasagna Gardening

Have you ever heard of Lasagna Gardening? 

Gardening in layers is like making lasagna!

This is a neat method of gardening that Mr. Right and I heard about a year ago but we didn't look too far into it.  Well, since I have been reading Vegetable Gardening for Dummies, I have learned more about it.  We are going to give it a try this year.  Here's what it is...it's a no-till method of gardening.  Which means that you save money by not having to buy/borrow a tiller and gas for it PLUS it makes you "greener" because you aren't burning fossil fuels just to till.  Here is what the book says about it...

"It's like making lasagna.  The season before planting, lay down a 3-4 sheet thick layer of black and white newspaper over the garden area.  Water the paper to keep it in place.  Cover the newspaper with a 6-inch-thick layer of hay or straw.  Top that with a 1- to 2-inch-thick layer of compost.  By the next planting season, the layers will have killed the grass and most of the annual and perennial weeds in your garden."  from Vegetable Gardening for Dummies

 Pretty neat, huh?  We decided to try it this year because we just paid about $30 in manure for the garden today.  That's heartbreaking for frugal people like us.  With lasagna gardening, you enrich the soil by compost...not purchased manure.  I don't ever want to purchase manure again!

We're going to divide our garden plot up into four beds.  That way, we can lasagna garden the beds and not the whole garden.  There is no need for our pathways to have expensive manure spread on them.

I'll keep you posted on how that goes!