1. Accessible Gardening:
Lasagna Gardening
Lasagna gardening starts your garden Making a Lasagna Garden
with new soil that you make by layering
yard and food waste. Where you make Just like the lasagna you cook, your
your soil is where your garden will be. lasagna garden has to be layered in a
This takes digging and tilling out of general order.
gardening. The layers of yard and food
waste will break down, giving nutrient- • The first layer of your lasagna garden
rich and easy to work with soil. This is either brown corrugated cardboard
breaking down is also called composting. or three layers of newspaper. The
Lasagna gardening is also known as space underneath the cardboard and
“sheet composting”. newspaper will attract earthworms to
your lasagna garden because it is dark
and moist. Earthworms help make the
waste into soil. Worms will also help
keep this new soil loose.
• Lay the cardboard or newspaper
directly on top of the grass or weeds
where you want your garden. The
grass or weeds will break down
fairly quickly because they will be
smothered by the newspaper or
cardboard, as well as by the materials
you are going to layer on top of them.
• Wet this layer down to keep
everything in place. Water also helps
waste break down.
• Put a layer of browns (leaves, shredded
paper) on top of the cardboard or
newspaper. Put a layer of greens
(vegetable scraps, grass clippings) on
top of the brown layer. Layer until your
lasagna garden is about two feet high.

2. Making a lasagna garden Advantages
(continued)
Although a lasagna garden needs to be
In general, you want your “brown” cared for the same way you would care
layers to be about twice as deep as your for any other garden, it takes less work.
“green” layers. There is no need to get There are a few reasons for this.
this exact. Just layer browns and greens,
and a lasagna garden will result. What • You will have fewer weeds.
you want at the end of your layering The newspaper and cardboard
process is a two-foot tall layered bed. underneath the garden will keep
The layers will ‘cook down’ (compost) in weeds from coming up from the
only a few weeks. bottom. The mulch you put on top
of the garden will keep weeds from
sprouting from the top.
No Digging
• You may not have to water as often.
One of the best things about lasagna
Compost, what you made by layering
gardening is how easy it is. You do not
food and garden waste, holds water
have to remove grass and weeds before
better than regular garden soil.
placing your layers of yard and food
waste. You do not have to double dig. In
• You will not need fertilizer. Your
fact, you do not have to work the soil at
garden is almost pure compost,
all. Lasagna gardening composts lawn
which is very nutrient-rich.
and food waste in place to make a new
garden. Where you put your layers is
• The soil made from building a lasagna
where your garden will be.
garden will be easy to work because
it is crumbly, loose, and fluffy.
•

3. Ingredients
The yard and food waste you use
to make a lasagna garden are broken
into two groups called the browns and
greens. Browns are: leaves, shredded
newspaper, peat, and pine needles.
Greens are: vegetable scraps, garden
trimmings, and grass clippings. Food
waste cannot be any meat product nor
have oils in it. For example, leftovers
from a stir fry cannot be used because
they were cooked in oil. However, if
vegetable scraps were not cooked in
oil, like leftover steamed vegetables or
raw pieces like apple cores, they can
be used. The following materials are all
perfect for lasagna gardens:
• Grass clippings
• Leaves
• Fruit and vegetable peels and scraps
Planting and caring for a
• Coffee grounds
lasagna garden
• Tea leaves and tea bags
When it’s time to plant, just dig down
• Weeds (if they haven’t gone to seed)
into the bed as you would with any other
• Manure garden. If you used newspaper as your
bottom layer, the shovel will most likely go
• Egg shells
right through it to the ground underneath.
• Seaweed If you used cardboard, you may have to cut
a hole in it at each spot where you want to
• Shredded newspaper or junk mail plant.
• Pine needles A general rule of thumb is to add mulch
to the top of the bed. You can use straw,
• Dead flowers grass clippings, bark mulch, or chopped
• Trimmings fom the garden leaves. Care for your lasagna garden just as
you would a regular garden.
• Peat moss

4. When to make a lasagna will help the waste break down faster. By
spring, it will be ready to plant.
garden
To make a lasagna garden in spring
You can make a lasagna garden any
or summer, you may need to add peat
time of year. However, fall is thought to
or top soil. This is so you can plant your
be the best time to make one. You are
garden right away. If you make the bed in
able to get a lot of browns all at once,
spring, layer as many greens and browns
for instance fall leaves, and general
as you can, with layers of peat or topsoil
yard waste from around your yard. Your
mixed in. Put three or four inches of
lasagna garden has all winter to break
topsoil on the top layer, and plant. The
down. Fall rains and winter snow will
bed will settle over the season as the
keep your lasagna garden moist, which
layers underneath decompose.
Resources
There is no right or wrong way to build a lasagna garden. The information in this
sheet is a basic guide to building your own. For more details on lasagna gardening,
check out these resources:
• Visit http://wb.extension.illinois.edu and type ‘lasagna gardening’ into the
search box.
• Visit http://anr.ext.wvu.edu and find lasagna gardening under the ‘gardens,
lawns & landscapes’ section of the website for West Virginia University’s Extension
Service.
If you would like to talk to someone about accessible gardening, or would like a
garden assessment done, call Green Thumbs, Healthy Joints at 800-841-8436.
All printed materials are available in braille, electronic format, CD and large print.
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Support for ‘Green Thumbs, Healthy Joints’ is made possible by the West Virginia
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which is part of the Bureau for Public Health.
6/2011