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The term ‘lasagna gardening’ is one that confuses a lot of people initially because they start trying to visualize lasagnas growing in a garden. You may well have had this thought yourself when you first heard this term.

However I can assure you that the world hasn’t gone mad and the classic Italian dish is not being grown in gardens. So let me explain what this term actually means and offer you some lasagna gardening methods and instructions should you want to grow your own.

Lasagna gardening is a method that is ideally suited to organic gardens in particular because you do not need lots of heavy fertilizers due to the rich, loose soil that is produced, which gives your garden a really natural feel. It is perfect for people that do not have a lot of spare time because it is a no-till no-dig garden, and it gets it’s name because it consists of many different layers.

No digging is needed when you are preparing a lasagna gardening bed. All you do is add layers of organic material because this will gradually decompose, leaving you with an excellent growing environment. You do not have to spend any time removing weeds because the lack of daylight will kill them and they will break down into compost.

The first layer of your lasagna garden bed should consist of unbleached brown carton cardboard or three layers of newspaper. Everything underneath should be completely covered up so no weeds are able to poke through. It is often a good idea to weigh all this down with a few stones. Once this layer is in place you should then give it plenty of water. This will help weigh it down and will increase the fertility of your soil later on because it will attract worms.

The next step is to put things on top of this layer just as you would a compost heap. So for example you could put leaves, grass cuttings, prunings, fruit and vegetable scraps, coffee grounds, tea bags, sawdust and shredded newspaper onto this bottom layer.

The goal is to alternate between dry brown material and moist green material. So your layers could consist of dead leaves, fruit and vegetable scraps, sawdust and grass clippings, for example. The height of all of these layers combined should ideally be around two feet so you may need quite a lot of scrap materials, which is why a lasagna garden shouldn’t be too big. This will all break down fairly quickly over the next few weeks and there will not be a lot left over, which is why the layers need to be this high.

If you want to plant things in your garden bed as soon as possible, you should add layers of soil or compost to form a top layer that you can plant in. However most people prefer to build their lasagna garden in the autumn or winter and let nature take it’s course because there is lots of waste material available at this time, particularly leaves and garden waste. You don’t need any soil and you can just leave it alone over the winter months. When spring arrives it should be ready for planting.

Lasagna gardening really is a great way of establishing new garden beds and it is relatively easy to do. As I have hopefully demonstrated, the lasagna gardening methods and instructions are easy to follow, and it requires very little maintenance once you have created it initially. There are very few weeds because the bottom layer will kill them off, and the soil that is produced is rich, fertile and full of nutrients. So the lasagna garden is perfect for growing all sorts of things and it can easily be accommodated into any type of garden.