Hi I'm Tricia, an organic gardener and I grow organically for a healthy and safe food supply for a clean and sustainable environment for an enjoyable and rewarding experience. Did you ever wish that there was a no dig way to prepare a great garden bed well there is it's called sheet layering or lasagna gardening, your gonna like this lasagna. Lasagna gardening is a slow compost process with no tilling, you can start your lasagna garden any time of the year but you wanna make sure that the vegetation underneath the site is short or mow it short. One of the great things about lasagna gardening is you don't have to pull out most kinds of weeds, if you have something really persistent like bind weed, blackberries, crab grass or morning glory pull those out before you start. Lay down four to six layers of overlapping newspaper or cardboard, this is a light blocking layer that will kill weeds and then compost them into rich humus or soil. On a windy day you can sprinkle it with a little bit of water so that the newspaper doesn't blow away. The next layer is the nitrogen rich chicken manure from my chickens other nitrogen rich materials include blood meal, soybean meal, grass clippings, food scraps, coffee grounds that have been already used, you can even use weeds as long as there are no seed heads. Now we're gonna layer some carbon material: these can include things like pine needles, dried leaves, sawdust, straw. This method of gardening is easy but the tradeoff is that it isn't quick. Expect your bed to take between three to six months, sometimes as long as a year to be fully composted plan accordingly. The bed I'm making in early spring will be perfect for fall planting my old cornstalks just add water to your lasagna garden as you go and now another nitrogen layer keep layering like this in alternate layers until your bed reaches eighteen inches to three feet again you don't have to do this all at once you can build your lasagna garden, uh... as you go, as you get materials. If you have a hard time finding materials you need for your lasagna garden go to the store, lots of local coffee shops and even some local grocers will have the nitrogen sources that you need. Edible lasagna ends with cheese we're gonna end with a carbon layer here, to make sure that we keep the moisture in and the flies out and also water at the very end. You can build your lasagna garden in a casserole dish, just build a raised bed, for more information and options about that watch our raised bed video. You can put burlap over your lasagna garden or if you live in an area with high rainfall or you're worried about critters you can use this Compostex compost cover, this can be used for any kind of compost pile. The cover is great for keeping your bed moist while shedding rain and snow melt and to help keep your bed from getting too wet, an alternative method if you wanna plant in your lasagna garden right away forget the compost cover, put three inches of compost right on top of the straw and you can plant right away. To maintain your bed simply add more layers and you can be a garden chef. Make your lasagna garden and grow organic for life!