From Compacted Clay to Thriving Garden: Build Soil Quickly with Lasagna Gardening

This ancient method transforms even the worst dirt into thriving healthy soil.

No, it has nothing to do the Italian pasta dish.

“Lasagna gardening” is a method of building rich soil.

It was one of the very first ways I learned to grow food when I started organic gardening 7 years ago.

My mentor and dear friend was a German horticulturalist named Marielu. She implemented what German’s call Hugelkultur raised beds all over her self-sufficient homestead, and let me tell you: the place was THRIVING.

Starting with compacted hard clay

But our new garden was rock-hard clay, basically concrete.

I asked Marielu how we would ever have a garden like hers if the soil was so terribly compacted.

She grinned: “I started with the same exact clay that you have”.