Lasagna Gardening

As he prepares for a presentation, Surry garden coach Bob Jones worries too many people will show up.

Tall in stature and wearing a floppy green hat, Jones looks like a benevolent general as he checks the materials on hand (grass clippings, trash compost, shovels, a pile of horse manure) and hopes for the best. Word has spread among the neighbors about his easy no-dig gardening technique, and Jones hopes he won’t be crushed. Once, 45 people showed for one of his backyard presentations.

“Everybody was bumping into one another,” Jones says. “It was just an impossibility.”

Until recently, Jones has received a lukewarm response to his gardening presentations. All that changed with the recent economic turmoil and subsequent spike in gas prices. Jones’ neighbors suddenly have grown a keen interest in his gardening, especially after reading an Ellsworth American profile of his work.

“Since then, the phone’s been ringing,” he says.

Luckily, a reasonable-sized group of 13 make the trek down a long gravel driveway to Art Smith and Tanner Leach-Smith’s home where Jones’ presentation will take place.

Jones talks to the assembled group about why gardening is so important in the 21st century. In his gardening regalia, Jones looks like a peaceful incarnation of WW II-era general Douglas MacArthur, and his opening remarks resemble a pep talk to the gardening troops, as well. He calmly paints a grim picture for the small crowd of a world so toxic that bee populations are collapsing and food riots break out as the price of oil skyrockets. It’s the kind of picture that drove Jones to become a peace activist after retiring from an investment career. He was a constant fixture at local and national protests.

After years of protesting and activism, Jones was feeling burned out and found solace in gardening. He began to share his produce and found out that he loved the way food helped bind neighbors together. Over time, he decided the best way to help the planet was to help people grow their own food, and he helped found a nonprofit organization called Grow Food Not Lawns. Now he spends parts of his summers volunteering to give presentations to help others start their own vegetable gardens.

Backyard vegetable gardens can provide much of the food we need while cutting costs and pollution, Jones says. World War II victory gardens were responsible for providing 30% to 40% of the country’s vegetables. And it doesn’t require backbreaking labor. Using a no-dig technique known as lasagna gardening, Jones says he’s harvested some 300 pounds of produce from his 300-square-foot garden this past summer, not counting greens. The key, he says, is to build up the soil.

In front of Smith’s house are two spiked areas of grass that Jones wants to transform into healthy raised beds before the afternoon is over. During the last presentation at a nearby garden, Jones says, participants were able to create a garden bed in 45 minutes; Jones thought this group could easily beat that time.

Within a few minutes, the presentation changes from the theoretical to the practical, as participants begin carting in and spreading mounds of garden-making material. Rather than turn over the thick grass sod, Jones advocates creating the garden on top of it. The idea is to create multiple layers of organic material that can easily break down into soil over the winter. It takes almost as much time to describe the gardening method as it does for the participants to do it.

The grass under the garden is cut short, and grass clippings and some compost are spread over the area and wetted down. This first layer is then covered with wet cardboard. Participants spread layers of grass clippings, manure, and non-meat food scraps with alternating layers of cardboard and straw.
“Where’s our hose-man?” Jones asks. Healthy amounts of water are needed between layers to keep things moist enough to entice worms and critters to break it all down.

The participants then add compost dirt and potting soil, and finish by covering it with a top protective layer of loose straw. Afterwards Smith will add worms to jump-start the decomposition process.

As long as the layers are added well before a first frost, preferably in August, a gardener should be able to make a furrow among the straw and plant in the spring. Gardeners can then add fresh layers each fall.

Jones says this kind of gardening is especially perfect for areas with compacted and less-than-ideal soil. He once helped start a garden on a former airport runway.

“It’s easy and the materials are basically free,” Jones says. “I’ve never done this where it hasn’t worked before.”

The raised beds are finished before the participants break much of a sweat. Jones then fields questions from some startled participants who just can’t quite believe the process is that easy.

“Instant garden,” one participant marvels as she looks at her handiwork.