What all can I put in my Lasagna garden??

[porboy298]

I started this year fixing a Lasagna Garden and as I have a friend that works
as a produce manager in a small super market and she has saved me all the
items that don't have seeds in them and I have been putting them in the garden and covering them with wheat straw and peat moss. This is anywhere
from 3 to 4 and sometimes 7 big boxes of item a week. I noticed that the last
few time I was in picking the boxes up that there was always a box of bananas very over ripe going to the trash. Will they work spreading them 3" to
4" deep without a problem. I have not been picking up squash, cukes or tomatoes because of the seeds. Should I be??

[dlangland]

Originally Posted by porboy298

I started this year fixing a Lasagna Garden and as I have a friend that works
as a produce manager in a small super market and she has saved me all the
items that don't have seeds in them and I have been putting them in the garden and covering them with wheat straw and peat moss. This is anywhere
from 3 to 4 and sometimes 7 big boxes of item a week. I noticed that the last
few time I was in picking the boxes up that there was always a box of bananas very over ripe going to the trash. Will they work spreading them 3" to
4" deep without a problem. I have not been picking up squash, cukes or tomatoes because of the seeds. Should I be??

I wonder if the archieves search still works here. You might find some info because we have discussed this a few times previously. I would hack up any only thing you could get for free. It will all eventually compost. If the seeds would sprout but you don't want them, the worst that happens is you pluck the seedlings out. Deb

[MELOC]

i have not researched this thread so forgive me but what is a "lasagna garden"? is this a no till mulch garden?

my bro turned me on to this book by a lady named ruth stout. it was about her mulch garden. she used a mulch/no till technique many,many moons ago.

she would simply peel back the mulch and drop her seeds or potatoes and then cover them back up with mulch. she would then heap a little more around the plants as they grew.

i seem to remember her not being to concerned with seeds in the materials added to the garden compost. her theory was that if the mulch was deep enough the wild seeds did not have a chance to grow. if they did you need more mulch.

i also remember reading that earthworms took the place of the tiller. they are vital to this type of gardening.

my bro tried to do this with limited success. he just did not have the volume of mulch needed for the size garden he had.

[Cyngbaeld]

I'd take the bananas, tomatoes, squash, the works and layer it with your cardboard, leaves, grass clippings, wood chips, what have you and let er rot. If you don't want volunteer plants just pull em. Easy enough or bury em with more mulch.

[Mid Tn Mama]

It takes more than one season to build your soil. So keep it up and you will see it get better year by year.

Take anything they offer. Don't worry about the seeds. They will be covered with other mulch ( and I start with a layer of cardboard or newspaper so they aren't on the dirt anyway) and even if they germinate after that you might want to keep some volunteers. The trick is to mark what you planted so there is no confusion.

Banannas are great. Worms love them. I always put my bananna peels around my tomatoes.

[albionjessica]

When I first saw this, I thought "eggplant!" Now I see that the lasagna you talked of was the soil. This made me think of my friends lasagne garden. She had tomatoes, peppers, squashes, and eggplants... all things she used in making lasagna.

I'd love to hear more on this type of soil-building. Can anyone tell me why lasagna is better than composting or mulching?

[Alex]

Does peat moss make your soil acidic? My new blueberry plants need acidic soil, and most everything else doesn’t. It seems that way to me anyway.

So do you need to limit the amount of peat moss?

I think you should be able to put just about anything in there, and as said, add 4 layers of newspaper or one of cardboard, if you are concerned about seeds sprouting. We add all the pea-vine, and potatoe plants, and by next summer they are mostly gone, we just cover them with more mulch.

Worms will come and help fix the soil and make it better. That's my experience after three years. Our soil is "getting better all the time."


Heavy pea and potatoe crop this year (August 05 picture) in our heavy-mulch garden (just cut the hay, add 4" barnyard manure, 4 layers newspaper--wet, and 12" oat straw.

Good Luck,

Alex

[Shazza]

Ohhh Yesssss.....what a great looking garden.
Sounds like a lasagne garden is Piggy Heaven :1pig: . One day I will have my whole front yard (house yard) as a Potage garden....gorgeous and usuable...much like your piccy Alex but with splashes of color.
But thankyou...I had never heard of a Lasagne garden.

[ceresone]

I sure would stop the peat moss. gardenweb has good forums on this subject, in mine its like the peat moss sheds water, thankfully, i only used it on one flower bed. but--the peat moss , in mine at least, is just like spreading canvas over the bed.
but--get everything else you can, throw a few shovels of dirt over it once in awhile.

[Cyngbaeld]

'Lasagna Gardening' is just a name someone used to sell her how-to book.' It is basically the old sheet composting/mulch method many people have used forever. I would not use peat moss as it must be purchased and is mined from bogs. Better to leave it where it is to my mind. Use all the free organic matter you can get your hands on and you won't need the peat.

[3girls]

Alec, you should be able to get tons of sawdust in your area. It makes excellent mulch for blueberries and the cane berries. I imagine some compost and manure put on first would be helpful. I had sawdust delivered by the truckload to use for that and for paths.

PS--Isn't your soil pretty acidic already? Mine in WWA sure was.

[Hetty]

I have made lasagna beds cos our soil is'nt very good and I'm not so able to dig now . I put down a sheet of cardboard (or newspaper about six sheets thick ) on top of the grass then pile on your household compost (uncooked vegetable scraps etc) chicken droppings ,grass clippings,torn or shredded newspaper ,in layers. I can get used compost from a mushroom grower too and its great for giving bulk and its Very cheap. If you finish the bed with that you can plant into it easily

[BCR]

Well, I don't add fresh material that needs to be composted directly to my beds. I let it age elsewhere in a pile. Then I layer that in after it is good and broken down. I don't sheet compost where I am going to plant this year. I use leaves, newspapers, cotton sheets, straw, hay and shrub mulch in my layers.

[Alex]

3girls,

Thanks, yes, our soil is on the acidic side. We do have lots of shavings/sawdust available from a nearby mill. And we have lots of peat moss in one lower area.



I put the organic material (rotted barnyard manure from the neighbor), at first right next to the old hay field, then the newspapers, then the oat straw. I thought it was important to do that at first. But, now three years later the soil is getting wonderful, no one else around has worms, and we have lots.

We throw the pea shells and tops in the paths, and cover them. At the end of the summer, we pull up all the reamining plants and lay them right there where they were growing, and cover them. They are mostly gone by late spring, early summer. We have to wait until June 1 to plant anyway. We pull back the mulch where we will plant two weeks earlier, to help warm the soil.

Alex

[Alex]

Shazza,
Is this something like what you mean when you say you want color? This is looking the other way in our garden, at the wild flowers.



These beauties greeted us when we came into our garden every day this summer. Potatoes are on the left, peas straight ahead. What a great year it was for our beautiful garden. A dream come true!

All the best,

Alex

[MELOC]

ok that one threw my for a loop until i saw you were aussie. lol. oi oi oi.