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Susan Vinskofski fell in love with plants and foraging as a young girl on a Pennsylvania mountaintop. There's never been a time in her life when she hasn't been identifying plants, gardening, or using those botanicals to make safe, home remedies for her family. Susan blogs at Learning and Yearning​ about gardening, foraging, and living naturally. ​

So you want to start your first garden. 

Or perhaps you've gardened for several years, but it's not been the success you've hoped for. 

Or maybe your garden has done well, but you want to take it from good to great.​

I'm excited for you, because with the information I'm about to share, you can prepare your soil in a way that will provide you with rich soil, and nutrient-dense garden produce.

A garden with poor soil may produce fruit, but that fruit can’t possible contain the nutrients, or taste as good, as fruit grown in fertile soil that has provided all that is needed for its health.

And, amazingly, plants grown in healthy soil have less problems with disease and pests, a common concern for all gardeners.

If there was only piece of advice I could give to improve your soil, it would be to compost​. This dark, crumbly, “black gold”, is made up of decomposing organic matter which builds your soil and keeps kitchen scraps and yard debris out of landfills.

One method of composting – sheet composting – is simply composting in layers on top of either an existing garden or on top of turf with the purpose of building a new garden or improving the fertility of an existing garden. This is really easy and will revolutionize gardening for you.

Build Layers to Build Soil

This method of gardening, also known as lasagna gardening​, involves no digging and very little weeding – the two chores that tend to discourage people from gardening.

Setting up a garden this way does require work, but it’s so much easier than tilling a garden (which damages garden soil)​. And once your garden is prepared, yearly maintenance is simple.

A lasagna garden is built by layering organic materials which eventually will decompose into wonderful garden soil. While it is preferable to build the garden several months in advance, it is not totally necessary to wait until that decomposition is completed to begin planting in the layers.

Build your lasagna garden right on top of the ground; there is no need to dig first. If you’re building on top of grass, this will decompose, too, and add nutrients to your garden.

First, put a layer of cardboard or newspaper down to choke out weeds. And then add more layers using materials such as leaves, manure, coffee ground, grass clippings, hay, and some important nutrients. 

My worksheet below with action steps will guide you through this process.

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A Garden with Healthy, Fertile Soil

I had been gardening for 30 some years before I began using this method of gardening which builds healthy, fertile soil.

My gardens went from good to great overnight with delicious, healthy produce as my reward. Applying the principles I've used to build healthy garden soil will ensure success for you, as well.

Be sure to see the worksheet I've included below which will take you through this process step-by-step.

• Full sun
• Good drainage
• Near a source of water

• newspaper or cardboard (no colored ink or shiny paper)
• partially decomposed tree limbs or twigs​
  
• grass clippings
• weed free hay or straw
• leaves, preferably chopped
• well rotted manure
• coffee grounds
• bone meal
• blood meal

• Cover the entire area of your garden with 1/4" of newspaper, or cardboard. Build right on top of lawn; no need to remove or do any digging. 
  

• Wet thoroughly. 
• Begin layering the materials you've collected. Don't worry if you haven't been able to collect all the materials. Use what you have. Begin with the largest items, like decayed branches. Save the compost, and a layer of hay for last, though.
• Wet each layer as you build.
• Keep layering until your lasagna garden is about 18” high. This will dramatically decrease as everything decomposes. 
• Add a thin layer of bone meal​ (phosphorous) and blood meal​ (nitrogen) every few layers.  If you are using a lot of coffee grounds in your layers, you may skip the blood meal. Hay will provide potassium, so you've got the NPK covered (nitrogen, phosphorous, potassium).​​
  
• The very top layer of your garden should be finished compost. This can be compost​ you have made yourself or purchased. The compost is where you will plant your seeds or seedlings.
• Once your plants are several inches high, it is important to add a mulch like hay to preserve soil moisture and keep weeds from sprouting.​​ Always keep your garden beds mulched over the winter as well.