Today's LA Times Home & Garden section features an interesting story about Pat Marfisi, who has a vegetable garden in his Hollywood Hills home. What's so special about that? Well, his garden is a "no dig" garden. More after the jump..
Creating A No-Dig Garden
LA Times Home & Garden 6.12.08
His gardens are made of raised beds "using lasagna-like layers of fodder, bone and blood meal and compost -- and remarkably little water." He learned this sustainable technique while working on an organic farms in Australia.
"No-dig beds are created by layering organic materials above ground on newspaper. Marfisi starts with alfalfa hay (Deans recommends Lucerne hay, but it's hard to find locally), then straw and finally compost. Marfisi dusts the newspaper, alfalfa and straw with blood and bone meal. (Details in accompanying story). The layers then decompose, turning into a nutrient-rich mixture much like compost. Marfisi says no-dig is more efficient, water wise, because once a plant has a 10- to 12-inch root system, the layers of compost and straw keep moisture around the roots. And you can keep layering it over and over again as the organic matter breaks down."
Marfi's story is pretty inspiring, going from a corporate board rooms to traveling to Australia and New Zealand, to now studying Horticulture. Check out the entire story at LA Times here.
The LA Times also has a great "how-to" if you are interested in starting your own "no dig" garden. Click here to read more.
[ images by Robert Lachman for LAT ]
Comments (7)
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A co-worker told me recently that she's doing this - she called it "Lasagne Gardening"
I replied, "Oh - So you're growing tomoatoes, zucchini and eggplant?"
view bepsf's profile
Umm...excuse me; lucerne is the same thing as alfalfa.
view ADonuts's profile
If you try this using hay, be very, very sure to pile on the remaining "ingredients" and do it thick to keep the sunlight and warmth from germinating those grain seeds. We made the mistake of mulching one year with a leftover alfalfa bale instead of going to pick up a straw bale and we pulled up volunteer grass for months afterwards.
view DianneS's profile
That looks like a giant bale of ditch weed.
Maybe that's why the worker's identity is hidden.
view art's profile
Could this be used as another rooftop gardening method?
view ajh's profile
I actually have a book by Patricia Lanza called, "Lasagna Gardening". It was printed in 1998 from the publishers of Organic Gardening magazine. It is a really neat book since it tells you step by step how to do it and all the different materials you can use for your layers. I just got the book for Mother's Day, so my lasagna garden this year is pretty small (in addition to my regular garden area), but it was so easy to plant stuff in and there are no weeds at all. I can not say the same for my regular garden! I planted radishes, beets, tomatoes, and squash in the lasagna garden.
view sar3j's profile
I forgot to add that when I laid down wet newspaper to kill all the grass, it almost completely decomposed and attracted hundred of wiggly red worms. My other garden has few worms. Apparently, the worms love the paper and will migrate towards it. Just like in a vermicomposting bin, I guess.
view sar3j's profile