Well...so far lasagna gardening has not been as fun, easy, simple, or fantastic as it was reputed to be. It could be because my garden area is so large, or who knows. I wanted to go ahead and get my thoughts recorded because assuming it works out the way it is supposed to, in the spring I might forget the difficulty we had in the fall (because I'll be enraptured by how perfectly everything goes!)
One of the main selling points of lasagna gardening is that it physically easy, making it possible for older folks, people with arthritis, and people with limited use of their body to continue or start gardening. It may be easier than digging up sod and turning soil, but it was still really hard! Laying down the newspaper requires lots of bending down and standing back up. Spreading the compost made my back very sore. Raking, mulching, and spreading the leaves wasn't hard, but that was the only easy part. And of course, we only made the beds about a quarter of the depth recommended. We spent 8 hours Sunday, 6 hours Saturday, and my spouse spent probably about 4 hours Friday and in that time we built the fence and got less than half of the garden area ready. We were both exhausted Sunday night and I would say my energy levels didn't return until Wednesday. I'm not a competitive athlete or a gym rat, but I'm healthy and in good shape and it is annoying when my weekend activities slow down the work that must get down during the week.
I know when I prepared my little 4' x 10' bed in 2009, it took me two full days in the spring to weed, till, and mix compost until the bed was ready. So maybe I'm just forgetting how hard conventional methods are. I guess I just think they oversell the ease of this method, and I'm skeptical that it is as accessible as they advertise.
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