There is no secret. Here is all I did.

1.I picked a spot where there had been no garden. It was covered in grass.

2. I sprayed it with glyphosphate (a generic Roundup). This is a step you could avoid if you would wait to plant until the next year, which I did.

3. Place several layers of newspapers, paper feed sacks, or cardboard, any paper product, just not the slick, glossy colored ones.

4. Layer over that hay, straw or what have you. I used flakes of some old spoiled hay.

5. Let it lay until planting time. I did it in the fall of the year before.

6. Just poke a hole where the plant is to go, insert plant, cover.

That's it. Now during the winter I would empty my kitchen waste under different flakes of hay. In essence composting in place. I still do that now. Kitchen wastes are just green, eggshells, and coffee grounds, no grease or meat products.

It has worked wonderfully well for me. The soil under is teeming with earthworms and is very soft and friable.

I haven't watered the bed one time so far.

That is pretty much what I have read.
That is pretty much my kitchen waste also, but I do all the paper items and some other things through out the house.
I was reading that each year. they would start a new bed and for the whole year they would basically compost plus all the above. then plant in the spring.
I have given this a lot of thought these past few weeks. I think it sounds wonderful. I compost in one spot and haul to where I need it. Such a waste of my time and back. I could have a wonderful bed to use in the end w/o all the hoopla.
Bonnie

Sounds a lot like Ruth Stout's ideas except for the round up. That old hay is valuble stuff.

Yes Helen, I forgot to say that about the round up.
One of the articles I was reading said. She put full newspapers down in the bottom of her bed. She got old copies from the news office. She left them all together and just opened them up to a large flat. As if you were to read the front page. then laid them all out w/a generous over lap. I believe they were 1/2 to 1 inch deep. She said by 2ed year most of the paper was broke down and fluffy beds. How much is right I don't know.
Just sounded like a good Idea at the time. I had never heard of it before. (yep I live in a cave). lol.
gldno1, do you work all that in in the fall to help or just leave it? It would seem if it was annuals it would help to turn it under?
Bonnie

gldno1- we do the same thing in our raised beds. all kitchen waste and shredded leaves in the fall. works well.

william

Am surprised so many people remember Ruth Stout. I was in my 20's and she was in her 80's when I first read her articles. I have always remembered because I figured I might need her advise. Guess what! I am now pushing 70 and find sheet composting the way to handle my gardens. The second season for my vegetable garden I could plant without tilling. This is the way for me now.

I can no longer dig out grass for a bed. Last fall I tried the newspaper and hay method and found it to work very well. Any time now, I will enlarge this area by eighteen inches using the same method.
GBBrown

I've done the lasagna bed thing. Only I put down cardboard last fall and some bags of compost and we covered it with top soil we had hauled in. I covered it all with mulch and planted in it this spring. That part of the bed is doing much better than the part that used to be the vegetable garden. As far as I'm concerned lasagna beds are the only way to go.

I am trying a slightly different version this year. I placed four straw bales in a box formation on top of thick newspapers. I have three of them. I have put compost, and garden scraps in the "holes". I have some tomatoes growing in the straw bales. When fall comes I might dismantle my blocks and keep adding compost and garden scraps to the piles of straw. Or I might wait and try to get another year of planting out of the bales. At any rate I hope to have some good soil when I'm done.

I am a Ruth Stout devotee. I have her "No Work Garden Book". I also was an early follower of the organic movement by J. I. Rodale out of Emmaus Pa. I have several of those early books. Back then, he was considered an eccentric. He had been proven to be right on so many subjects. Now that is covered by the new Green movement. I am reminded of the adage "there is nothing new under the sun".

My goal is to have the entire veggie garden under mulch. If you could see the tall crab grass in there now, you would understand the necessity. I don't seem to be able to keep up with it without mulch.