You are going to love it. Go ahead and do the manure now. That way it will have all winter to hide and decompose the cardboard.

In the first pic. you can see where we had begun puting down compost.

You will never again throw leaves away.

Feb. 2007

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Sept. 2008

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It's how I start all my flower beds. You really have to water well at first to make sure the moisture penetrates the layers of compost, leaves, paper/cardboard and can make it down to the soil.

I used the lasagne method and it has worked great for me; big difference from the beds that I didn't use it as far as weeds and the quality of the soil. I'm working on another flowerbed right now, in an area that gets those pesky hackberry tree seedlings that are so hard to control, hope this will solve the problem.

Yes I do lasagna gardens. I actually prefer newspaper to cardboard, becoz it is easier to wet and to work with and it decomposes better. The cardboard will work too but like someone else said make sure you wet it very well all the way through, and in my experience, you have to give it a pretty long time to decompose. I guess depending on your weather and rainfall. But it may not be ready from fall to spring. In other words, the cardboard not decomposed. You can still use it depending on what you are going to plant, you can dig through the cardboard to plant a shrub for example. You can plant in the organic matter above the cardboard if it's several inches raised bed and the plants will not have deep roots. I agree, I would put the manure now and any other organic matter I got, e.g. leaves.

Wow i am glad to hear it works for you! Louisianagal, i already stocked up on the cardboard so i hope itll break down ok.
Plantmaven, what is the black material on the right side? Or is that compost? I absolutely love the finished garden! Your house is so charming! i wish my dh wouldn't mind me expanding the front beds. I think i pushed it this year when i ripped out the forsythia hedge and did a bed there. he was so used to the privacy and until things fill in it looks bare!

newbie here, but are you using this method to get rid of grass...? or is it just to prepare any old bed?

Its mostly (for me at least) to get rid of grass. I hate digging up sod and the area im working on is large . If it was an old bed i know i would work the same!

aimeekitty, you can do lasagna method to build a garden bed right over grass, or you can do it to smother grass to make a path for example. I have a section in the very back of my back yard, it is behind some trees and a large ornamental grass clump, and there is a barbed wire fence at the very back (and a soybean field behind our yard). Well, right now I am pouring shredded paper, leaves, grass clippings, newspaper can go 1st underneath. What I will do is smother the grass back there so I don't have to mow back there. I'll just keep it a mulched area and I'll likely sow wildflower seeds back there, or even plant a melon patch in spring. It will keep me from mowing back there (it's on a slope so a little harder and too many things to go around) and it will give me more space to plant stuff. I still have grass, and I like some of it for me and my dog, but I think it is so much healthier for the environment in general and the ecosystem of the yard, to have biodiversity with lots of different plants.

The black on the right is cheap roofing paper.
It is/was easier for an old lady to put down. A county agricultural agent told me it was safe to use. The "tar" on it is non-toxic. I found lots of live earth worms in just a few months. I figured they were "the canary in the mine"
Did you notice the time line? Six months from the begining until I got yard of the month.

Great job, plantmaven!

Lilyfinch, I tried a lasagna garden 2 years ago but didn't really have enough stuff (I thought) but left it and it's turning into nice soil. Of course it's growing a great crop of weeds which I'm gradually pulling as I bury more compost in it. I can easily dig down about a foot in nice loose soil now. Previously this was pure natural clay almost like concrete with weeds and grass growing in it. By next spring it will be excellent as a planting bed.

The areas around trees where I've just put down cardboard and mulch are so much less weedy than other areas. Not completely weed free as we have a lot of weed seeds that blow in from the uncultivated and pasture areas but better. It also holds the moisture.

Before I put the cardboard down I water the ground really well, wet both sides of the cardboard with the hose, and also water once it's down to hold in place, then pile the stuff on. If you won't have the manure till spring you'll need a lot of rocks to hold the cardboard in place.

Plantmaven, your Yard of the Month award was well deserved! I always like to see pics of your yard - a real success story.

I also used the lasagna method to start all my beds. I simply put in cement edge then covered the grass area with newspaper, wet it down, then got a couple loads of well cured manure from a farmer and then planted. The flowers grew well, but so did the weeds, so instead of weeding, I covered the weeds with more newspaper and then bark mulch. Worked like a charm!
Flora

There seems to be some misunderstanding by some on what a real lasagna garden is. Check out the link below for many sites which explain that this is a many layered (similar to the edible lasagna in that way) way to compost on top of the ground to improve the soil.

When I did mine 2 years ago I used the barn cleanings of sheep manure, old hay, and sawdust, grass clippings, weeds I'd pulled from the garden, and coffee grounds. All this layered on top of the cardboard which was directly on top of the grass and weeds. The mistake I made was in not keeping it moist enough as we live in a dry climate and I got tired of watering it as well as the rest of the garden. Consequently it took longer to break down depending on natural precipitation over 2 winters.

Using cardboard and mulch is great if your soil has already been amended or is healthy but it's not a lasagna garden. It does however provide a better environment for earthworms because it maintains moisture so they will improve the soil over time.

Here is a link that might be useful: lasagna garden

Lilyfinch - you will love the results!! Plantmaven is right - do i now, if you can. Then, you can plant some bulbs for a Spring hit of colour!

Nancy.

I would get the manure now. It may have weed seeds in it. If you will give then some time to sprout, you can kill them as small seedlings. Maybe you have a sterilized manure source. Mine comes from a barn lot and has lots of weed seeds in it. It is light and easy to hoe or I smother with more stuff like flora does. Get some leaves this fall too.

I have lasagna'd the 2nd property we purchased...very slowly...i need to start working on it again but i need a manure delivery... At first I did not use manure, and I didn't have cardboard or paper. One day I had extra concrete so I just decided to make a boarder and get to work. I used a thick later of wet oak leaves, then chopped up the plants which needed to be cut down for fall, then layered that with food scraps, then some native soil, then some more leaves...by late winter it was GLORIOUS stuff and so full of worms. The garden lived in parts of it for 2 years before the tornado hit. That soil was the most successful so I'm at it again..slowly (It's a lot of concrete to stack and break up!!)

I tried it for the first time this year with 2 raised beds for vegetables. I was quite surprised on how well the lettuce and carrots grew.
I layed down about 10-15 sheets of newspapers, peat moss, shredded leaves, grass clippings, kitchen waste, manure, ashes and other composting materials. I did it in early spring and didn't plant in it until about 6-8 weeks later. It had really dropped down since then with all the materials composting. I'll have to add more of the above so I'm ready for next year. Plus make more beds.