Building a Lasagna Bed

Here's some step by step photos of my first attempt to create a "lasagna" type bed. I should have started this much earlier to let the layers "cook" for better compost. By the time I really started a decent enough collection of materials it was already getting late in the season.

Basically, I collected everything I could round up that was organic. I bought some composted cow manure and a couple of bales of peat moss to give it a decent start. And then I left it for about a week before planting corn last Monday. I should have made a few more layers than I did. Irregardless, I used what I had and what I could afford to buy. I didn't want to use a lot of peat moss as is suggested in the book because it's a very slow growing resource and kind of expensive.

Now that I'm in the composting mode, I will be starting a pile behind the shed. My goal is to go ahead and start another bed this summer and then gradually pile onto that over the year. Then, it will have cooked much more sufficiently like compost should.

It will be interesting to see how well this truly does.