crappy lawn thinking of doing a garden lasagna everywhere in back then reseeding next year?

Question

I can get enough yard waste to do it is it a bad idea? I want to reseed and do not want to use lawn chemicals thank you

Lasagna Gardening-No Tilling

From gardener Arden:

Create a new gardening bed without tilling or pulling up grass and weeds:

Once you have a well defined garden bed, no need to clear it of grass or weeds, just layer about 6 or 8 newspaper sheets or cardboard over the bed area, water the paper or cardboard to the soaking point (this method will eventually smother whatever is growing there).

Over this paper or cardboard, you can build up layers of organic materials by using already made compost from your own pile or bought in bags from a nursery, chopped up leaves, grass clippings, chipped up prunings, produce trimmings, aged manure (not dog or cat), whatever you can gather that will rot. Pile it on as thick as you can and be sure it is kept well moistened as if you are watering a garden each week. This is known as lasagna gardening.
Or you can mix everything together and then pile it on top of the paper or cardboard if you prefer.

If you would like to have a top layer, wood chips can often be found at your city's Parks & Recreation Dept., or you can check with your local nurseries. This will make a good top dressing to keep moisture in and to keep wind from blowing away your lasagna.

This material will break down and become a rich, loose loam. Keep adding to this each year and you will have a very nice gardening bed.

Answer 1

Garfield the cat lives in our neighborhood. He comes to our yard and eats our roses. We wouldn't dare turn our yard into a lasagna.

Answer 2

all right then.. so it's layers.. I understand.

but look.. if your soil under the turf is crappy and lacks substance, it will take a long time to build good soil from the surface.. (layers). If your plan is to re-seed grass, this is probably not your best plan of action.

I'd think in terms of renting a rototiller and turning the whole thing under. Add organic matter (compost, composted manure, leaf mold, etc.) at this point and incorporate it into the soil. once it's tilled, you can rake and level the soil prior to re-seeding. be sure to mulch in your seeds with straw or cover the seed with a topdressing of 50% sphagnum peat and 50% coarse sand. This will help the seeds germinate and keep the birds from eating them.

If you're planting a garden, till, then build your lasagna. A covering of newspaper and mulch will help keep weeds down and your plants will have less competition.

BTW- Wood chips as a mulch SUCK! they can cause all kinds of problems and look terrible.. select a bark mulch instead. If you do buy something from the parks department, make sure it's COMPOSTED!

Good luck.

Answer 3

I'm a little confused by your question. What do you mean by a garden lasagna? Are you wanting to know what organic things to put on your lawn?
In Shakespeare's "Hamlet" Queen Gertrude says to Polonius "Less art, more matter". I think that's what we need here. less creativity and a more straight forward question.

There, now I understand and that actually makes sense now. Yea, that's a good idea if you can get enough to cover your whole lawn. However, Tilling is not that bad as long as you have a big heavy duty tiller which you can rent from equipment rental stores. It would actually be less labor intensive then creating a "garden Lasagna" Good luck

Answer 4

what is a garden lasagna?