This is for members who have started or will start their plots:
Sheet Mulching/ Lasagna Gardening
Resources:
BBG Brooklyn Compost Project’s Lasagna Mulching Workshop; April 2, 2011
Gaia’s Garden: A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture
There’s many ways to layer materials in a sheet mulched bed (lasagna bed). It’s basically alternating layers of browns (high carbon) with greens (high nitrogen). Sheet mulching is similar to composting, but requires a higher percentage of carbon rich materials than in bin composting in order to slow down decomposition. Sheet mulching has several advantages to traditional growing in tilled soil with added compost. First it’s a space saving method of composting, great for community gardens which have limited space for a composting area. Old mulched beds can be moved around if needed. Second, all the nutrients released during decomposition stay where they are, available to growing plants, whereas in bin composting, nutrients tend to leach out the bottom of the pile. Fewer weeds germinate in piles built carefully and beds maintain moisture for growing plants, again if built well at the start. Ideally, build your pile in the fall so there’s time for material to break down. Make sure you have enough materials before starting and that any large pieces of material, such as food waste are chopped up.
Ingredients: you can use an assortment of materials, but this is what we have at the garden presently (while supplies last):
Fresh manure
Cardboard
Food scraps
Coffee grinds
Leaves
Wood shavings/leaf mix: sticks need to be removed before using
stump grinds— from tree stumps and soil
Chunky compost
Vermicompost
Florist waste-chopped
Straw
Plant tone organic fertilizer
Fish emulsion
Directions:
1. Water the area well one day before starting, no need if it's been raining
2. Next day, slash down any weeds/ grass. No need to pull them out.
3. Add soil amendments (optional)
4. Make openings into the ground with a digging fork.
5. Add high nitrogen materials like horse manure or food scraps
6. lay cardboard, overlapping by 6”, (to prevent weeds from finding a way through) wet completely
7. Add kitchen scraps, water
8. Add stump grindings in the ratio of 1 part manure to 4 parts stump grinds, water
9. Add unfinished compost, then add the following ingredients in roughly this order to total about 20” high.
10. a light sprinkling of Plant-tone organic fertilizer
11. leaves
12. food waste
13. straw
14. leaves/wood shavings
15. vermicompost
16. Plant-Tone organic fertilizer
17. compost and soil mix
18. straw
Tips:
o Before starting, keep ingredients dry
o Water in between each layer; material should be the consistency of a wrung-out sponge
o Don’t walk on the bed, this will compact layers. We want to keep them fluffy.
o Use a rake to evenly spread material, its OK for it to be a little chunky for trapping air. You may need to use a digging fork to keep the corners sharp, and the bed level so you don’t lose planting space.
o If using raw manure, should build 16 inches above that layer
o For plant starts (transplants), punch out a hole that’s three times the size of your seedling; add some soil, seedling, a little more soil and tamp into place.
o For starting seeds, make 3” deep trenches. Fill with soil/ compost and plant seeds
