Planning MSG 2008: Lasagna Gardening

After reading Colleen's review of Lasagna Gardening, I started thinking this could be exactly what I need to get ready for next year's garden. I picked up a copy last night after work.

Book Review
What I like most about this book is the no-nonsenseness of it. After a short description of how she thought up the idea of Lasagna Gardening, Patricia Lanza gets right to explaining how to build a Lasagna Garden and describes a few of the ones she's built herself. I don't like garralous how-to books so this is right up my alley. Unfortunately, this makes the actual information of this book more suitable for a pamphlet - the rest seems to be general plant information but that didnt make me regret the purchase. I hate reading how-to books and thinking chapter after chapter "GET TO THE POINT, ALREADY!!"

So, about MSG 2008, I've already thought of 5 different places I could try this lasagna gardening!! I'm so excited!

Front Garden:
This is the new garden I started working on last weekend. After reading the book, I realize I could have just put wet newspaper down over the grass and started dumping stuff on top of it, but I'm not that regretful. I was able to use some of that sod in my expired veggie garden, anyway. I'm planning to finish removing the sod from the front garden, then try the layering over top of the dirt in hopes I'll have rich soil to plant in next spring.

Raised Bed Veggie Garden:
I had planned to wait until next spring to build my raised veggie beds but after reading this book I'm thinking I should do that like TODAY! My thinking had been, what's the point of putting the wood frame out in the yard now since I couldn't plant anything until next year. All I'd be doing is reducing the life of the wood by one year having it sit in the winter weather. BUT, there is the problem of filling the beds next spring once I build them. With Lasagna Gardening, I could simply build the beds, put down wet newspaper, then start layering stuff on top of it. I mean the leaves are about to start falling, plus I do still have the rest of the veggie garden to use for greens once I pull it out. If I start now and cover the beds with black plastic, I should have a very good start on filling those beds so that I don't need to bring in nearly as much dirt next spring. Plus, the soil will be so much richer than simply dumping top soil in the raised beds, right? What do you think?

Basketball Garden:
Immediately beside the basketball court is a 25 x 2.5 foot area that currently contains lava rock, and weeds. I bought the rocks 2 summers ago before I knew better. I didn't buy enough to look good, plus the rocks poke holes in the weed barrier so the weeds grow like crazy. It looks like crap! I had decided that I'd remove the rocks next spring and plant some sort of ground cover that could withstand basketball abuse, maybe creeping thyme or something that would smell good? Anyway, now that I've read about Lasagna Gardening, I'm thinking maybe I should go ahead and start on that now? Same principle as the others, I'd have great soil for planting by next spring.

Alley Garden x 2:
There are 2 small spaces by our fence and garage off the alley and even though I wouldn't really plant anything fancy back there, I do hate that it's so weedy and ugly. Maybe I could lay down the wet newspaper to kill the weeds and layer it so that I could plant some no-maintenance wildflowers or something back there next spring.

Another thing about this whole Lasagna Gardening thing is that it gives me more stuff to do in the garden now that everything is almost finished. What I love most about this is that it seems to be a way I can use things I already have around here to build great soil for next year. This satisfies the green side of me, the cheap side of me, and the lazy side of me!

Wow - I've got lots of work to do!