The message
from (Rodger Whitlock)
contains these words:

On Fri, 14 Mar 2003 09:57:12 -0000, Charlie Pridham wrote:

"H" wrote in message
...
Anyone tried the no-dig 'lasagna' gardening technique? If so, what
do you
think?

If you mean chucking all your green waste straight on the ground and not
bothering to use a compost heap first, then that is what I have allways
done, whether it is better than the other way I don't know since I would
have to change my lazy habits to find out!

There are two distinct strategies I've read/heard of:

1. Ruth Stout's no-dig gardening, where you cover the soil with a
*thick* mulch of straw or something similar.

2. "Sheet composting", where you put organic waste directly into
the soil under a thin sheet of soil.

Neither of these would work very well, afaict, for permanently
planteds beds, but for veggie gardens, both work just fine.

So which are we talking about when the term "lasagna gardening"
is used?

Neither :-) In the Lasagna gardening book, the author describes laying
wet newspaper on the soil, then piling on it layers of different
(undecomposed) compostable materials to a foot high..rather like making
a lasagna. Then she plants straight away direct into what's essentially
a raw new soil-less compost heap, not into the soil beneath, iow the
seeds or seedlings roots have no soil contact. She claims this is
successful; no mention made of the bed heating up and frying the
planting..or, of how whatever she plants could acquire water and
nutrients direct from other plant material. Hmmm.

Janet