Newbie to lasagna gardening

My questions is simple, after the first year of a lasagna garden what needs to be done to prepare it for next year?

Back to Eden growers cover theirs with wood chips and other debris and other types till it in the spring.

Is it an annual created garden?

Hi Mike,  Welcome to the SFG Forum from California!  

Lasagna gardening is a way to make a bed of compost that should be broken down in a few months into enough compost to feed the plants.  It is not a way to Square Foot Garden.  For continued care of a lasagna bed, I would recommend researching the subject on other sites.

That said, a lasagna garden, especially one made in the fall when there is a good supply of leaves and other dried materials layered with fresh "nitrogen" greens, can supply some usable compost in the spring.  If this compost is used in equal parts with fluffed peat moss and coarse vermiculite, it could be used to create Mel's Mix for new beds.

The composting process is slow, done at lower temperatures that may not kill weed seeds, and partially anaerobic as it is not turned during the months.

Just keep adding to it. 
In the fall you can cut back everything at the soil surface and add mulch, leaves, wood chips, compost, biochar, ashes, shredded paper, cardboard, whatever you would compost.
You can also plant a cover crop like crimson clover and oats that winter kill in zone 7 and cooler. Then in late winter you can top dress right on top of the cover crop, no kidding, no tilling.

@SQWIB thanks for replaying.

@sanderson, wow cranky much?

You would have figured the gardening community would be just that a community of people who HELP one another and you have shown that this place has no room to anything other than closed mindedness of one methodology of gardening

Oh, and for your consideration don't you think someone could plant square foot style in some other kind of dirt beside Mel's Mix??????

You might as well have told me to leave, oh wait you did!
Don't bother banning me, I'm not coming back!

mikemacguyver wrote:@SQWIB thanks for replaying.

@sanderson, wow cranky much?

You would have figured the gardening community would be just that a community of people who HELP one another and you have shown that this place has no room to anything other than closed mindedness of one methodology of gardening

Oh, and for your consideration don't you think someone could plant square foot style in some other kind of dirt beside Mel's Mix??????

You might as well have told me to leave, oh wait you did!
Don't bother banning me, I'm not coming back!

Wow, Mike - I really think you took Sanders' reply differently than she meant it. I mean, she welcomed you to the forum before answering your question as best she could.

So - first off, let me do the same    to the forum. 

This is a community of people who help one another, with the specific focus being on square foot gardening as Mel Bartholomew describes in his book, All New Square Foot Gardening Vol 2 (ANSFG). He was very specific about what a "real" sfg is, and was big on saying things like "you have to have a grid" and "use only Mel's Mix" or "it's not an sfg".  

Even with the fairly narrow focus that Mel had, there are discussions about other types of gardening styles here. SQWIB, for instance, posts regularly in the "https://squarefoot.forumotion.com/f82-non-sfg-gardening-discussion" I really think that Sanders was just trying to tell you that there might be other places that could give you better/more information about maintaining lasagna gardens specifically. But if you have questions about the sfg style; the grids, the number of plants per square, problems or suggestions - this is definitely the place.

I hope you don't give up on your search for a community in which you feel comfortable, and wish you great success. Happy gardening!

BJW,  That was a nice reply you gave.

Yes, this is the Official Forum for SFG.  We, including me, have discussed other forms of gardening, but the emphasis should be Mel's Method, with any other method as side dishes.