cc >> So, lasagna gardening,
or deep mulch gardening, is an
maintenance gardening technique. organic and sustainable, low
you who came in, I do not have a I don't have handout, for any of
paper, but you can go to: handoinfiltratinglandscapesre on
.blogspot.com and download both lasagna
gardening handout and a number of other handouts.
They're all free. And I'm going to show that
website a couple more times.
installation, I offer that as a service, of edible landscaping.
I also do educational presentations, and I also have a
number of demonstration sites where I've worked with people to
help put in demonstration gardens.
I always do low maintenance sustainable gardening
techniques. For any of you that are
interested, October, at Olbrich Gardens, that's the O word, in
Madison on March 3rd, I'm doing a day-long workshop and I have
some other presentations
Those are listed on my blog. going on around the state.
instead of tilling the soil, So, lasagna gardening is,
with a smother layer. I we'like to use cardboard orgs
newspaper. Then we're going to pile dead
plant material and livestock
of that, and plant manure, some combination on top
In 2008, that was the first year directly into it.
west of here by Spring I was at this site, I'm an hour
River Valley on 160 Green/Lofeet deep sand.Wisconsin
So that's a sand garden. So,
I want to show you. heThis is Highland Schoolre
District. They have really good soil.
Their lawn is really lush, and
same. Here's Seneca the laover south of Laks the
Crosse near the Mississippi River.
And, again, this garden is
And, again, see the garden on very heavy subsoil clay.
and really lush growth. So, realagain, here's my contactds,
information. I do not have a handout here for
you, but you can download it from the website.
So it's infiltratinglandscapes. blogspot.
com. So what we're
today: how to build the lasagna garden and maintain it, take you
through the growing season, and lasagna gardening pictures
because a picture is worth
So if you are a conventional a thousand words, right?
technique is bare soil gardener, this
Just relax in your chair, put on 180-degree mind shift.
going to be a lot of information your seat belt because there's
pictures. These are herenot PhotoShopped.t the
These are my real photographs.
like Velcro or ratchet straps. So to me this idea is kind of
perfect, and it's kind of like, why didn't I think of this?s
A question for you and if I've
please don't answer it: when in nature does the soil get tilled
the way that we till it? Yes.
The only thing I can think
And when does nature leave the of would possibly be pigs.
Never. So when we try soil bato have a tilledesert?
bare soiled garden, right off the bat we're fighting nature.
In the early '70s and in the
Organic Gardening magazine '60s, Ruth Stout wrote for
different books. She's and also published a couple
publicize having a mulch the first one to really
If you have an existing garden garden where you stop tilling.
weeds, no quack grass, no creeping Charlie, no turf grass
in the garden, I'm hearing
mulch that soil with four to chuckles, then you can just
year and just plant through eight that into the soil.h every
But for anybody who has rocks or
or quack grass or creeping clay or sand or compacted soil
garden, then keep listening. Charlie or other weeds in the
things for the garden. Plant-based mulches do a lot of
They suppress weeds. They conserve moisture.
temperature. When we They stabilize the soil
when you have a mulch garden, in have a bare soil garden,
up and it gets to 60-65 degrees thand stays there through theng
summer and then kind of cools off in the fall.
When you have a bare soil garden, the soil does this.
It starts warming up and then you start getting these peaks
and valleys every day. On those sunny days in July when
it's 90 degrees out, that soil
I'm sure we've all felt sand or tsoil that's too hot to walk on
or touch. Plants did
soil. It stresses them.
That temperature goes down
That's why containers that are into their root zone.
and tomatoes, even though they getting 95-100 degrees, peppers
tropics, they don't like their like heat, they're from the
with their roots roots hot because they evolved
And ultraviolet light kills the microbes and the worms in the
soil, and it also breaks
Those are two of the huge things down organic matter.
to give us healthy plants. So we'when we mulch the soil, itil
protects the soil from
ultraviolet light kills the microbes and breaks down organic
matter. When the
down plant-based mulches, they're actually breaking it
down and the nutrients that they
So there was a book published in make available feed our plants.
and that's where I '98 called Lasagna Gardening,
She gets it really complicated. I've simplified it.
So the lasagna garden, it's a layered deep mulch garden of
dead plant matter and livestock manures.
So anywhere around the world
there are livestock manures. there is dead plant material and
required. Dead plant And livestock manures are not
that. And then you material, we need
this mulch. You don't plant into the soil.
So I'm going to show you pictures.
But, basically, if this was a soil surface here, we're going
to, let me see the
So here's a really good picture. next slide, there.
at their elementary school. ThThey actually had wood mulchen
along the fence. So here's
has some dandelions and creeping Charlie in it.
We put down what's called the smother layer.
That's cardboard or newspaper and we're going to smother the
plants by taking away light,
So we put down a smother layer, and that goes all the way across
here. Then at this
stray bales and some garden, we had some
Grass clippings are a nitrogen grass clippings.
carbon component, and we'll go component, straw bales are a
So we put down cardboard all the over that more in a minute.
is just one of the best pictures way across there, and then this
building it. So I hcardboard is a carbon of
component so we put some
on top. Then there's nitrogen, some grass clippings
of those and some more grass clippings.
And then there's more straw or hay on top.
And so there I think that picture shows you the steps.
And then eventually all the way across here it looks like this.
Like the left-hand side where it's the deep pack.
Does that make sense? Question quick.
[INAUDIBLE] >> Yep, I'll go
over that in a minute.
straw. I'll talk about that in a
minute. So, here's just a sample
diagram. In the book, she talks about
many, many layers, and she also talks about using a lot of peat
moss. I speculate that she's married
to a peat moss baron. [LAUGHTER]
Because you would go broke
moss that she uses or usthat she recommends.at
I don't use any peat moss.
concerns about are we over-mining the peat bogs, and,
in my opinion, if we use
sustainable. Every things local, that's the most
or burning leaves by the municipality is exporting
Wisconsin we have lots of old thay and old straw about then
landscape. So those two things are really
abundant and those are
So here's, whoops, so here's the dead plant material.
have quack grass and existing sod, and that could
Then we put down cardboard or newspaper, and you overlap those
seams. So, I really,
the gardens are fairly good size, so I like to use appliance
boxes, and by that I don't mean like a toaster oven or a toaster
or a blender box. I mean a
box or chair and couch boxes stove or a refrigerator
appliance stores. They from furniture stores or
The ink is only black. have very little ink.
I don't use glossy boxes like would be from a toaster oven,
and I also don't use
So newspapers or cardboard glossy from the newspaper.
You need to overlap those seams about four to eight inches.
Newspapers should be about
Then you just start piling these 10 sheets thick every place.
it's called lasagna gardening is things on top, and the reason
layers. So this one becausis just an sample it in
but we have the cardboard smothered in some old hay, maybe
some compost, more old hay, some
about more later, maybe some soybean meal, which I'll talk
meal on top, and a leaves, a little bit of soybean
For those of you who burn wood little bit of ashes.
garden, here's a recommendation. and add wood ashes to your
wood or chemically treated wood. One, don't burn pressure treated
wood ashes should be about The normal annual application of
So don't be dumping a five-gallon bucket of ashes
around your rhubarb plant.
They're very alkaline. A very Yolow amount of wood ashes.
per year. So here's just a little
accidental happening. On the, whoops, on the
right-hand side of the screen there you can see these squash
plants are higher off the ground and twice as big.
These are planted in
These are planted in the my lasagna garden.
Notice they were sand but heavily mulched.
Everything was the same. I planted the same time.
about a month of being in the ground, the ones on the
right-hand side are twice as
I'll show you more of bigthat in a little bit.eft.
Here's a YMCA garden. And notice the lack of weeds.
This was put together, whoops,
spring, and because it's for this was put together in the
so they left a lot of space. preschool and early school kids
This was a strawberry patch that they were waiting for the
strawberries to finish and then they were going to dig some
plants out and move them to another spot and then smother
this because it's full of quack grass.
But Lindsey there is the one
They had a garden for three or who is the garden coordinator.
season with this garden, I four years and this past growing
said one of the students who visited there July 18th, she
year before, who was probably refour years old and doesn'the
understand the whole gardening
are you going to mow the garden this year like you mow it every
other year? [LAUGHTER]
Because she would mow the weeds in the garden, and he
liked that part. So kids
things. And they do say the darnedest
here on the side. They were able to get extra when
they got hay bales for this so
they'll use in the fall. But they have some there stored that
So, lasagna garden is nota slow compost pile.s.
Please don't glaze over now as we talk about carbon and
nitrogen. I'm going to simplify it.
Carbons are usually, these
Carbon materials are usually are four keys words.
they're usually burnable or things that you could start on
fire but you shouldn't, and the thing that I've added that a lot
of people don't talk about is they will not usually attract
animals to eat them. Nitrogen components are usually
green, they're usually wet, they
stinky, and they will attract usuallanimals to eat them.d get
So here's my comparison, if you set your newspapers stacked
outside for recycling, no raccoons, possums, rabbits,
deer, or anybody cares that you set a pile of newspapers
outside. You put
outside on the deck to take to the garden the next day,
somebody comes and gets into it. Make sense?
So, some examples. Some ingredients for a lasagna
garden or a compost pile, and the first list, the brown, these
are carbon things. Cardboard, all paper products
come from trees. This is dead plant material.
Newspaper, leaves, grass
weeds when they're dry, straw, clippings when they're dry,
papers, and peat moss, but sawdust, kids' homework or
Things that are nitrogen peat moss is really expensive.
grounds, soybean meal, cotton seed meal, which is a southern
thing, kitchen scraps, grass
You know how when you mow the clawn and you pile up grass
clippings, they'll stink for two
start drying out? What we're or three days and then they'll
is ammonia gas which is the nitrogen off-gassing from the
grass clippings. Dry
nitrogen; wet green grass clippings are high in nitrogen.
Weeds would be the same thing.
which I've talked to different If you're in an urban area,
alfalfa pellets or chicken feed are another nitrogen component
that people can buy. Animal manures, of course, and
it turns out that hay and compost are already pretty much
in that perfect carbon/nitrogen ratio.
Yes? >> [INAUDIBLE]
Manure, yes. >> Does it have to be a certain
age before you throw it on
Okay, so the question is, I've mentioned animal manures
and do they need to be old
When we put the lasagna garden aged or can they be fresh?
likely sit two to three weeks, together, it's going to most
you can put that in the bottom so if you had some fresh manure,
and if you have aged manure, you layers and spread it very thin,
because when we smell manure don't have to spread it as thin
is also the nitrogen sitting in a pile, what we smell
So aged manure is much lower off-gassing.
So you can use either in the in nitrogen than fresh manure.
put deep and spread it thin, So building a lasagna garden, there
are five simple steps. The
cardboard or newspaper, the organic material layers, and
that's dead plant material
Then we need to hydrate it. There's the primary digestion or
fermentation, and this is where the most readily available
nitrogen is eaten by the microbes.
You can get a fermentation
I'll talk about that smell and it may heat.
It will last like two to more in a little bit.
And then we can plant into it. five days, maybe a week.
it because winter will do the rehydrating, and then there's no
decomposition smell because it
So, I've showed happenyou this picture.tures.
Here's the layers. So, question?
[INAUDIBLE] >> Put it
together? >> [INAUDIBLE]
So the question was, how
put one together? My basic late into the fall can you
to put a lasagna garden in place rule, the only time not
So into November/early December, is when the ground is frozen.
[LAUGHTER] Other than or tthe last four weeks,y...
as long as the ground isn't frozen, and so now I'm
telling you about this when the ground is frozen so do not
install a lasagna garden
All of this dead plant material untis basically celluloseed.
insulation. You don't want to build a garden
on top of an ice cube that is insulated.
So if this sounds overwhelming
try it but maybe this orguy's crazy, just try it.to
Trust me. Just try a little bit.
Just 16 square feet. Maybe
Do the smother layer. Just a four by four plot.
your garden and try see what happens.ot in
It's easy enough this fall to spread it around and be done
with it and go, yep,
[LAUGHTER] So do that guy was crazy.
It's really this simple. Do the smother layer, 18-24
inches deep of carbon and nitrogen layers, and rehydrate
it. Transplants you put just into a
hole, you just dig a hole in the
hole in the ground, stick them mulch like you were digging a
around. Put a in thlittle water on and back
they're planted. For
little trench like you were making a trench in the soil.
So you make a trench in the mulch, put a little soil or
potting mix or seed-starting mix
put your seeds in there and then in that hole or in that trench,
I'm going to go through that a they'll come up through that.
And so right now a lot of people, I don't know if I'm kind
of rocking your brains because
mindset of gardening, but just this is a totally different
through more pictures, but try it and we're going to go
And how simple it is, I said this is how simple it is.
by four-foot garden. This fouwas at a preschool or afoot
pre-K school. So these
We used two straw bales and some blood meal.
And they didn't have a hose at
this is. They followed school, and this is how easy
They had great success. They just used cups or milk
cartons or bottles, and when
all had fun to go water the garden for two to three weeks.
So if preschoolers can do it, we all can do this.
So a small hay bale garden, so
bales to make this garden. This Iis probably the most simpley
lasagna garden
[INAUDIBLE] >> I possible. Question.
to come, question was do I don't and I'm going
the hay or straw and I don't. I'm going to ask, can we just,
if there's clarifying questions you can ask those, but I'm going
to cover almost all these things
end unless you're so let'sreally confused.til the
So little square hay bales. In
are, these are little case ysquare hay bales.t they
[LAUGHTER] So if
at this picture, you you look closely
I did not even cut the twine. They are set right there.
This was a friend who had never gardened in his life.
He's in his mid-60s, a neighbor.
center because it was Iwider than the hay bales.e
But see the hay bales are still intact, and I'm there to plant
that day. This is May 25th, and look at
the vegetation around there.
periwinkle, these things that Tare not that easy to kill.
And what we did, I don't even think we did cardboard here, and
there's, of course, wonderful quack grass here.
No weeds here. So May 25th, the garden is being
planted. There's July 7th.
July 27th. This is a
GeGerman. [LAUGHTER]ry
And he said to me, I keep talking to my friends about
my garden and they say you're going to have to weed, you're
going to have to weed.
He said, I have had five
[LAUGHTER] I said, weeds, is that bad?
very well. So, this is the lasagna garden
simplified. There's the sod layer, the
smother layer or the existing vegetation, and just old hay on
top. I have learned one thing since I
put these slides together, and
you what that is. when I The decomp smell.ll tell
So here's my garden.
Wisconsin River Valley, 160 feet deep pier in fertile sand.
So there was my backyard
This is June 2nd. If this whwas decent soil or clay,y.
there'd be some grass growing.
a UFO land in the The pbackyard... [LAUGHTER] had
Or an above ground pool. I
pool. So this has think been all the monthground
of April, all the month of May
really, really happy, and whnothing's growing there.re
So I laid down cardboard over the existing, or the lack of
existing, vegetation. Those are mostly refrigerator
and stove boxes.
There's a thunderstorm coming so I got them so the cardboard
didn't blow away. If you're using newspaper, don't
use glossy but take a dishpan or a five-gallon bucket or some
container, get it wet first because then it won't blow.
All you have to do is put it in something, run water on it, let
it sit for 10 minutes or so.
unfold it, and lay it down just fine but then it doesn't blow
away. Spread the hay.
June 7th I'm still putting
I've got a sprinkler it but it's getting deeper.
Here's how soybean meal, so if on it watering it.
straw, you'll need to add you hasome nitrogen to it.mostly
So I mentioned soybean meal,
co-op store where farmers would wbuy animal feed in bulk or
seeds. Not at Farm
Farm. Or, like I and Fleet or Fleet
alfalfa pellets or chicken feed. said, dog food or
things. And I'm Those going to quantity.uired
So this is how I spread it. My
gallon per 100 square feet. reSo if you know who Jacksone
Pollock is, you just take an ice
bucket and a little yogurt cream bucket or a five-gallon
container and you go out there container or some deli plastic
there. There is no and you just throw it here and
This is just I threw rhyme or reason.
My motto is less work, it here and there.
So this isn't rocket science. So the hydration process.
Dry plant material is slow to rehydrate.
It is better to water the garden
water it six hours in one day. one hour a day for six days than
day, 95% of that water is If just going to run through.one
When you water it, you can put a
and then you can water it like tarp or a plastic sheet over it,
stopping the wind every oand evaporation. that's
When it gets moist, it may heat up to 120 degrees for two to
five days and you may get a fermentation or decomposition
smell. It's vegetation
flesh decomp. But the human nose doesn't
distinguish that much,
setting. So what you particularly in an urban
using mostly hay, now in an urban setting you probably
wouldn't be using mostly
infiltratinglandscapes. hay, bublogspot.comebsite
and pull down the composting handout.
That talks more about carbon and
of different things. nitrogen, gives you a good list
which hay is just a little So if you're having,
that's why when we get bit high in nitrogen,
So what you can do if you have it really wet it smells.
or straw in with it. So do all hay is mix 25% either leaves
and some leaves, hay a couple layers with hay
And then it's like and some straw.
Then it will be neutral nitrogen, and it won't smell.
I'm confused. So in the spring, if you built
in the fall, all the layers,
Okay, sorry, yes. So the would use water in the spring?
do the watering? If you're question was, when do you
and you want to plant within putting it together
watering. If you put two to four weeks, you do the
fall, you can water it a couple times, maybe that will keep the
deer out if things get moldy, but you can water it a couple
times in the fall just so it
40-60 mile an hour wind, but you doesn't blow away if we get a
in the fall. Winter don'twill take care of it.t much
In March when things are thawed out, check it and see if it's
wet. It needs to
through before you plant, but it be wet through and
just wet. So if you put does noit together in then down,
spring, when things thaw out now
you'll need to take two to three and you want to plant this year,
when you do this weeks of watering, and that's
That's when things are warmer we intensive watering.
when you may get can get a warmer day, and that's
So if you got all hay, just add some carbon in there.
[INAUDIBLE] >> Okay.
Okay. So the question was about a lot
of different rodents and
garden, moles. Moles different things getting in the
doesn't cause a problem. There's tunnel under this and it
increase rodent thing, maybe a little bit of an
No different than other mulch. but not that much.
rodent population explosion Andbecause there's not a foodt a
source. So whatever problem you have
now, this really shouldn't
how to fix your problem. Once cit cools down, then you canss
plant into it. Here's just and example of
getting water on it and putting a tarp over.
So the planting instructions, planting transplants.
I know it's unbelievable but, so
stacked it up this deep, in two to three weeks of watering ore
from fall to spring, it's going to compress more than 50%.
As long as it is wet through and
So all you do to plant into it through, you can plant into it.
longer plant in rows because I is you just, now here's, I no
have to do rows to don't need a tiller so I don't
So here's me just, this is a mix accommodate a tiller.
plants. So you notice plantinI just have them edible
planted here and there. I just dig a hole in the mulch,
not down to the soil, stick them
pour a little bit of water on, in, push the much back around,
going to wilt and you probably and they're probably not even
the next day. That's won't even have to water them
It's really that simple. planting transplants.
Seeds need two things to Why don't weed seeds grow?
time. There's a lot germinatof things, buthe same
they need these two things
They need moisture from good soil to seed contact.
So if this is a seed, this is my seed, it needs lots of fine
particles around it so that it
trigger it to germinate. The can absorb enough moisture to
think about, how many people other thing we don't always
wouyour rhubarb plant? No.eath
Because they're not going to
light. Seeds need a growlittle bit of light get
to trigger germination. That
seed down here, if there's tells them, so if I'm a
making shade, it's not already something above me
I might as well sit dormant and hope next year there's nothing
growing above me. So this is their little internal
dialog that I heard. [LAUGHTER]
So they need a
So what happens in this deep little bit of light.
inches deep, there's two mulch, and now that it's 8-12
One, the smother layer the first really critical things.
be somewhat coarse. Don't yeaput compost up there, andayer
don't put really fine particle
happens is this is 8-10 inches stuff up there because what
So the straw and old hay is kind deep with a coarse layer on top.
dry spaghetti. So there's of cono good soil to seed like
contact for weed
They don't get enough soil to seed contact.
And they're getting light. But
below this, they have enough the seeds that are down here
are really compressed but soil they don't get light.things
And that's why that garden that I've shown pictures of, and
you're going to see more, it's
garden, I used some of the 30 by 50, 1,500 square foot
it was really inexpensive. weediest hay I could get because
burdock, and dock. That Igrowing season I had lessd,
than five minutes of weeding
Not per week, not per month, the the entire growing season.
five minutes weeding because entire growing season less than
it. So now how do this priwe plant seeds? you use
So how we plant seeds is once this mulch is compressed, the
top two to four inches will always be dry, but below there
it's going to be wet. So you
trench across here to dmake a place to plant.
So I dug down here. Then you put some soil.
Some of your native soil, some
mix, any fine, some compost, potting soil, some seed starting
that will give you good somsoil to seed contact.ials
You put about an inch down deep,
your seeds on it, and then cover two to three inches wide, put
germinate up out of that. And once they germinate in that
seed in that soil-like mix, their root is going out into the
mulch. They'll be just fine.
So you just need
So that's planting seeds. One more picture.
Planting potatoes, even easier. So you got your mulch down.
Is it a clarifying
quWhat? >> [INAUDIBLE]E]
Yes, you have to dig
dowis moist. So yes.lch
Sometimes one piece of hay or some parts of the leaves will be
weird and they won't rehydrate. They have some fungus growing on
them that prevents rehydration. What I do is if I want to plant
in a spot where it's dry, I just
walk and I take some wet stuff go to my path where I'm going to
So if it's dry where I want to and I just flip-flop it.
some place else and flip-flop pit or I just move over a foot.f
So planting potatoes. You've
mulch on the soil surface here, I just, because if you've been
listening to me at all on Larry Meiller or on other things you
know mulch is my
So I'm always happy to garden religion.
So to plant potatoes, you just put more mulch down.
mulch, put another four inches put them on top of this dry
planted. If you of mulcwant to hill your they're
potatoes, when they get to be four to six inches tall, just
put some mulch between them just
out. Do that two leaving a little bit of stick
that's like killing them. So I or three times and
Valley on 160-foot deep sand. I want to show you some gardens
for comparison. I'm not making fun of these
people, but I want you to see the difference of what this
gardening technique does on this
are doing. So these sand are some local sandeople
gardens in the Lone Rock/Spring Green area.
That's their tomato crop. Actually, beans did pretty well.
This guy, look at the fencing here.
They go to a lot of work to have
tomatoes they get. Every this garden, and that's all the
There's another one. year it looks like that.
Any of you that ever planted This is a summer squash.
like a summer squash, does summer squash, that doesn't look
This is a very harsh it? They got one fruit.
It's called the gWisconsin desert.t.
This is the best
They actually water it twice a garden in the area.
south-southwest. So day, that tree shades ito the
mid-morning, and now it's 6:00
west. So people plant at nighttheir gardens in to the
partial shade just to be
And they water it ablonce or twice a day.w.
So here's my garden. Now
deer fence/chicken wire fence. you're looking through my
garden. So remember, It's not laid down on the
putting the garden I didn't start
So this is late. This togis a late garden.2nd.
This is July 21st. Notice the lack of weeds.
There's August 5th. Remember, this is a line of peas
that were planted mid-July
Remember them. There's for a fall harvest.
[LAUGHTER] And they were planted late.
There's a sunflower. It's getting on eight-foot tall
there. Isn't tipping over.
I love it when the garden is taking over the weeds.
[LAUGHTER] Those are those peas
September 9th. They started, the peas by
package were supposed to
We started harvesting get peas at knee-high.all.
They eventually got over eight
producing peas until hard frost stopped the pea production.
There's that sunflower. That's
aboit didn't tip over.and
This becomes that. And
season. So this is that's in one growing
obviously, where I walk. Notice there's no blight on the
tomatoes. There's how much in compressed
in a growing season. In the path, there's that
tomato. I had to tie
head got heavy. Just it up because the
hay looks like as it mulches. sIt turns that kind ofld
gray-brown. There's those peas getting
taller. See all the blossoms on them?
So this isn't just growth.
accidental experiment. I So the squash, this is my
this picture. So just sshowing a little bit howt
this squash in the lasagna
gaother squash. Look at it.the
Here there vines have pretty
these guys are just starting much reached these guys, and
Nutrients are more available, moisture is even, then it was
kind of a free-for-all. [LAUGHTER]
So there, this is in
So the advantages. Soil type.
Sand, clay, rocky, compacted, or
You grow above the soil. You good soil, it doesn't matter.
concrete. No tilling, could dno digging, noalt or
weeding, less watering. Kills perennial weeds.
Soil microbes are protected and fed.
There's less soil-born disease. Soil-based tomato blight can be,
basically, gone. It recycles
waste. You're never muddy.
You have cleaner plants, cleaner
you're at school, you foohave cleaner students.if
[LAUGHTER] So look at these two pictures.
Those two gardens have one
one end of the spectrum chaand one is at the other.at
Can anyone guess? They
lthey? Here's the answer.t
This garden is on 160-foot deep pure sand.
This garden is on subsoil clay that was full of shale.
There's the two ends of the spectrum of soil types, and the
gardens look the same.
The main garden work is done in spring or fall when it's cooler.
There's less sitting, kneeling, and bending.
You use your larger body muscles.
To me, it's neat
There's almost no weeding, looking and orderly.
very little watering, almoand very little cost.nce,
I'm on this sand where people water once to twice every day.
I water once a week to once a month.
So I've cut watering in my area,
one-thirtieth, and I have a whbigger, more productive,to
healthier garden. So you
giant plants. When to install.
Fall is ideal. There's
winter takes care of most of the lots of leaves and
cycle. Any time works rehydratiif you can get no heat
the materials. Just remember, the hydration and
heat cycle takes two to four
fermentation smell, but I told weeks and you can get that
if you're using mostly hay. The yoend of the season in fall,in
how do you do clean up? So
our soil surface, what started what started out, so this is
to three weeks is now a foot out 18 to 24 inches deep, in two
season will only be two deep oto four inches deep.f the
It just keeps breaking down.
feeding worms, and It's feeding your soil, it's
So, we don't end up with a it's decomposing.
feet high and we have to have garda ladder to get into it. six
[LAUGHTER] So, what ends up happening
is from the soil surface
everything down, dead tomatoes, squash, whatever, all those pea
vines, whatever, knock them down
whatever you had in there, and after the last killing frost of
surface, bring it back up to be 18 to 24 inches deep.l
So you already got two to four
that. You're also incheburying all of thisop of
year's disease problems that
again. No smother willlayer is needed againrface
unless creeping Charlie or quack
gotten in there. Other grass or some perennial weed has
work just the same. In the gardens, annual flowers
talks about doing booperennial flowers.she
I haven't done it, and it doesn't make sense to me.
I want perennial crowns in the
A myth: the soil will never grouwarm up in the spring.nd.
It's a raised bed, and
My soil in my garden right now mulch is an insulation.
never froze. I went underout a week ago and Irden
stuck a post in the ground over a foot deep because it went
through the mulch into the ground.
It never froze. This is cellulose insulation.
So the ground doesn't get as cold.
I've had potatoes sprout from last year that I missed digging,
so obviously they didn't freeze.
spring, the lasagna garden, or If you want it to warm up in the
this spring and you want that iground to thaw out faster, pute
some clear plastic over it, or
warmer early in the spring, you could put clear plastic over the
lasagna garden. >> [INAUDIBLE]
No. It needs to be
Black blocks the sunlight. You clear, not black.
strikes it and warms it. A want clear so it actually
over. Nine to seven myth: tfoot sunflowerl fall
didn't fall over, and you're
eleven foot corn. goThis matrix is dense. to
The roots spread a long way in the rich, loose medium.
Concerns or warnings. It
One truckload is basically the takes a lot of material.
because a truck bed is footprint of that truck bed
So a truck bed isn't going to do 16 to 18 inches deep.
a third of this room. In the a big garden, isn't going to do
the decomposition smell that warm months you can get
In winter there's no smell. mDon't install it touchings.
rottable foundation sills of buildings.
There are fire
You can have it a minimum of concerns. You decide.
actually, I've done some 18 inches from a building, but
scientific testing actually wood research since and from some
fire than hay or old straw. muSo here are some pictures ofon
gardens.
This is in Lone Rock. We
I'm going kind of quickly. So while I go through those, is
there a question? Okay, a whole bunch.
Wait. Tracy, here you are with the
microphone. So I'm just going to slowly flip
through. These squash vines got 35 to 40
feet long. There's that corn.
I'm five-foot, nine.
And that's August 9th, so it's That's going on nine feet.
Gourd went up the go anottree. [LAUGHTER]o grow.
This is that Seneca garden. This is the way to trellis big
tomatoes. Put posts in
it, and then run twine. anOkay, question.to
Wherever you...
My question is, can you use dried pine needles?
Okay, great question, dried pine needles.
So this garden turned into a
This one, I'm going to come to jungle but there's no weeds.
show you. This is a that,school garden out atd to
the school forest. This is fallow hayfield.
This is quack grass and other stuff.
All the difference here is
So it's pretty darn effective. they put down cardboard.
would use as the top So pine needles, pine needles I
You could put a few in but if you put them as top, they look
nice, they're coarse, it will stop weed germination, and then
you can have it, then in the
that since they're slow to break fall you'll cover them up so
bottom for next year. I want down then they end up at the
pictures. I want to ttalk about how do youre
manage big tomatoes. I
I have to get my computer out of will take more questions.
to take more questions because here, and then I'll be outside
those, but I'll be we're not going to get to all
So, big tomato cages. This outside to take those.
from blight, but this is a is dead from frost, not
So I get the kind that's about woven wire or field fence.
seven- to eight-foot length, four-foot tall, 40 inches, cut a
column, tie it to one T post, staand then that holds it up. a
Or I've started working with a
this is kind of a fun sculpture that's a bottle tree that is a
tomato cage. There's
Here's a big garden. another one.
There. Okay, another question.
Can you grow blueberries? >>
shrub so I would still Blueberries are a perennial
There's my handouts again. So you could, if you are going
to do blueberries and you want
lasagna garden for one year with a clean, weed free area, do a
blueberries into there, and ayou'll have a weed free area.g
One more question. >> What
nitrogen source? >> Oh, you're just trying to get
me into all kinds of
[LAUGHTER] The question trois, what aboutou?
using urine as a
There is a book called Liquid Gold: The Lure and Legend of
Using Urine. It is a
nitrogen source. It is perfectly acceptable
[LAUGHTER] Okay, thank you.
[APPLAUSE]