Spring Has Sprung! Creating Raised Beds and About Lasagna Gardens

So this spring 2008 I had a strong urge to extend my garden plots - which I did! However, I discovered the effort involved far exceeded what I anticipated. If you plan on really digging up your landscape or yard, and it is wild land or sod with no prior cultivation, then be prepared for back breaking labor! :)

I also discovered a popular garden idea called "Lasagna Gardening" that I wanted to try. This term was coined by author Patricia Lanza in her book on the subject. This idea interested me because while I already have about half an acre of existing gardens so far, I have such a wild mass of land otherwise that I know (first hand) the tilling and digging required. I wanted to see if I could avoid hauling out the tractor to expand this out here and there. The land itself has been an organic farm for 40 years but it was a dairy farm; which means: an abundance of alfalfa, clover, pig weed, wild hyssop and of course, the ever prolific wild carrot. NOT easy stuff to uproot when you have 5 solid acres of it. Not to mention, heavy HEAVY sod. So after reading repeated reviews claiming that the concept of "no dig, no till" worked like a charm, I attempted this as part of my expansion process for my gardens. It is essentially the same as making a raised bed, but suggests the use of amendments that naturally break down over time, and thereby, loosen up soil and subsoil from heavy amounts of organic matter which creates worm activity.

However, I am sorry to say that in practice, the "no dig, no till" result was not the case for me - and I discovered that just about on day 1. I found instead that while the lasagna concept can work, it won't work well as a stand alone technique for those in a scenario or environ similar to mine or for those seriously wanting to garden on large plots of space; and most especially, for those intending to grow any sort of vegetable. The fact is, ALL vegetables require very pliable, balanced soil and will NOT grow well in uncultured areas. What that means is: if you think that laying a bunch of amendments over 5 inches of 40 year sod and alfalfa will be enough root run for your vegetable plants (and especially root vegetables) - you are sorely mistaken. :) In this scenario, you will not produce any appreciable amount of produce in the first year. Knowing this, I found that I needed to make (many) adjustments to my lasagna garden upon taking into consideration all the factors of my specific environment . Ultimately I created raised beds from what originally were intended to be lasagna gardens per the above explanation - and they can only improve for next season because of it. 

A Lasagna Type Bed - Mid Season

So the first thing I did was go to the lumber yard and select non-treated natural plank, and had them cut it for me too because I don't like dealing with drills and saws unless I have to; plus, the whole point of this was to avoid hauling out heavy equipment and the good old John Deere. :) I decided to do several smaller type beds also to make it more manageable. So my planks were all between 8 and 12 feet in length by 1 foot depth for the most part excepting a few smaller beds I wanted for carrots that were about 3x10 feet successively. I also had them cut some 2x4 posts into about 15 inch length to anchor the corners. Wallah! Garden beds! Certainly, you can get fancy about it if you like, but decoration was not my personal objective - I was thinking more like: fast, easy, cheap as possible. :) Here's one bed as example:

On the left you see the 2x4 posts I placed at the corners. Use a bulb digger (or any trowel but a bulb digger works great) and dig down about 4-5 inches, place in your posts, stabilize them and pound down well, then use them to nail the boards into. Once the frame was essentially set, I filled in gaps around the edges to level things off, added several layers of newspaper, and then started adding "lasagna" filling right over the above sod such as, leaves, manure, compost, greensand, - but the majority was dry, dead leaves and compost as you can see below.

Contrary to the "easy peasy" notion of lasagna style methods, I ultimately ended up adding several thousand pounds of manure both local and commercial, topsoil, and a variety of other amendments. In some of these beds I wanted lush, luxurious tomatoes and I could tell that NO WAY they would get through the underlying soil. So I had to fill them - hence, a lasagna garden that really is a plain old raised bed. However, there is a great benefit to going about it this way - which will be seen next season once the underlying materials are thoroughly broken down. So it was worth the effort.

So is this something you can do by yourself? YES you can. Just remember a few things:

1) Be prepared for laborious work!

2) Consider the cost of filling beds (if you choose that route - which I did for some of them but not all of them). Yes you can do a lasagna garden without filling beds, but remember: vegetable plants require the air spaces and variety found in tilled soil. I don't mean you have to double-till (which is also not necessarily a good thing) - but think of it this way, if your roots can't get THROUGH the soil, they can't absorb the nutrition they need or retain proper moisture levels. If you want a lasagna garden of peppermint- then you can plant that on a rock and it will grow like crazy. But if you want heirloom tomatoes, carrots, and most any other fruit bearing vegetable, then consider the conditions these plants need.

3) Do NOT use fillers without checking to see they are free of toxins, chemicals, weeds, etc. For example, lots of folks like to use straw to fill beds - but then they forget to check that the straw has been cleaned of seed! You will grow a healthy STRAW garden in your bed if you don't inquire on whether its hulled or not. So always check your sourcing to avoid planting weeds and unwanted seeds through this process. 

4) Lasagna / and / or raised beds REQUIRE regular watering - particularly in their first year. Why? Because they are essentially new cultivation areas with plants needing root run and certain conditions to produce a harvest for you. Each successive year will improve your growing area, but taking care to maintain things in the first year such as adding compost, manure, fish emulsion, and proper watering will ensure a healthy first year crop and guarantees success the following years as well!  In a separate post I will journal things I have learned from my endeavors this season, for now, at least I have some reference on this season's spring start up endeavors. :)

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