Raise Your Beds and Lower Your Labor

Improve your soil with NO digging, using this nifty raised bed recipe from landscape designer Pat Lanza of Wurtsboro, New York. You just layer the ingredients for these "lasagna" beds right on top of the existing sod or soil. Pat says that her recipe will give you a raised garden bed "in half the time and with a third the work" of conventional bed-preparation methods! Pat's "lasagna" recipe is for a 4 X 12-foot garden bed.

Ingredients and Supplies

Newspapers, wet (no glossy colored sections)

4-cubic-foot bale peat moss, moistened

3 bushels grass clippings

3 bushels shredded leaves

3 bushels compost

4 bags dehydrated manure or 4 wheel - barrows full of aged barnyard manure

1 bucket wood ashes or 4 cups limestone

Plastic sheet (to cover bed)

Stones or bricks

Directions

1. Measure the bed and mark the corners, then stomp down any tall weeds or grass.

2. Lay wet newspaper—about 10 to 12 sheets thick—over the sod, overlapping the edges.

3. Now make your "lasagna": Cover the paper with a 2-inch layer of moistened peat moss, then 4 inches of grass clippings, 2 more inches of peat, then 4 inches of shredded leaves, 2 inches of peat, 4 inches of compost, 2 inches of peat, and 4 inches of manure. (You can substitute other organic materials, such as hay or straw, for the peat moss, grass, leaves, compost, and manure.)

4. Moisten each layer thoroughly as you go, repeating the layers until all the ingredients are used. Sprinkle the ashes or lime over the top of the bed.

5. Cover this "lasagna" with plastic, using rocks or bricks to secure the edges, and let it "bake" for at least a few weeks—the longer the better.

6. When you're ready to start planting, remove the plastic, and stir all the ingredients together with a garden fork. Then pop in your plants, water, and mulch.

Yield: One 4 X 12-foot raised bed that can provide fresh herbs, vegetables, and flowers for 1 to 4 people all season

Note: Pat says this recipe gives you a rich, raised bed with delicious soil and without any digging. "It's so easy, and it takes little time and little money," she adds. And, just one season after you build your bed, you'll lind that even the hardest clay soil under it

will be looser due to the magic worked by the composted materials in the bed (and the earthworms they attract).

Create the perfect soil for raised beds! After covering the top of the pile with plastic, sun-bake lasagna-like layers of organic ingredients for a few weeks. The materials will break down over time to create rich, crumbly compost you can grow your plants in.