You can't really do a lasagna garden without lots of "green" stuff....and some brown as well...you can buy compost but not green grass.
My advice is to lay down your cardboard now, cover with a layer of bagged composted cow or sheep manure, add green stuff as you get it all summer....get someone to save their grass clippings ( provided they have not put chemicals on in the past 6 weeks.)...keep it watered add some leaves in the fall....water well....and let the snow fly.
Next spring you will have a lovely bed....cardboard all rotted and everything nicely composted, ready to plant.
Linda C

Linda you make that sound to easy not to try! :) I will have pleanty of green stuff, and know where I can get one big cardboard box. Now I just need to get some brown stuff.
Wooo Hooo!

Potato peelings coffee grounds and shredded newspaper can also go into that lasagna. When it is 18 inches to 2 feet tall, cover it with wood chips so it doesn't look too awful and set it to cook.
Linda C

If you've been able to make a true lasagna, that is, having enough of each sort of material to be able to put the stuff into layers, you can plant many annuals and soft perennials right away. They not only don't mind being part of lasagna-in-the making, they often thrive. So, make a 16"-18" tall lasagna and then transplant by digging a hole 2" bigger than the rootball. (A trowel should dig easily.) Line the hole with 1" of compost or rich garden soil and put the new plant in, patting down firmly. Don't forget to mulch around the plant. Check the raw lasagna weekly and keep it just damp enough to feel like a squeezed-dry sponge. Marigolds, phlox paniculata, and pole beans each do especially well in new lasagna.

Amy,

I use leaves (brown) and purchased alfalfa pellets (greens) in the fall. In the summer, I use a neighbor's lawn clippings for greens and shredded or ripped newspaper as browns. I also use coffee grounds, garden clippings and kitchen waste all year long.

Newspaper tears straighter in one direction than the other, so try both ways. It's not hard to get 1-2" strips.

Don't forget to wet things down as you put down the layers. Lasagna gardening is such fun!

Hope this doesn't violate protocol, but this is a link to a discussion of "instant beds" that I found on the winter sowing forum. Definitely not lasagna beds, strictly speaking, but I used some of the info from this site for a great little bed of annuals.

Here is a link that might be useful: Instant beds

Kaky ~ I'd call that a really good thread on one-layer lasagna, lol. Years ago, I was taught that method as a good way to plant Irish [white] potatoes, especially if you're planting them during a cold spring.

Personally, I'm a little cautious about recommending corrugated cardboard as a layer because so many people have complained that it doesn't decompose properly or seems to interfere with overall decomposition. Donn is sort of right about the air inside the corrugations being a help in the composting process, however, that air moves out as water seeps in and the over-materials weight the cardboard down. I suspect if he had dug apart a springtime bed a couple months later, he would have either found a sodden, partially decomposed area of wet papers (with the corrugations squished), OR composting lasagna on top and dryish materials below the cardboard if the cardboard had never been thoroughly wetted... and some corrugated cardboard is very, very thick and very difficult to wet. Keep in mind that the straw, hay, or grass incorporates a lot of air when it is placed, and the soil itself has air in it. OTOH, the posters are pleased with the method and the more people who learn how easy lasagna is, the better :-)

The St. Francis posting on lawns was hilarious, thanks.