The Ravenous Farmer video series covers the first complete year of establishing our homestead and garden in Midcoast Maine, starting with Lasagna Gardening 101. This video covers the basics of the lasagna gardening method, also known as sheet mulching or hugelkultur. It also demonstrates how we built the garden, and it includes how much we paid for materials.

From bottom to top, this is how we layered our beds: cardboard, birch, manure/hay mix, seaweed/leaf mix, seaweed, straw, and cow manure. The point is to alternate carbon- and nitrogen-rich materials, which break down together to create fertile soil. Chopped leaves are another one of my favorite carbon-rich materials because they are so easy to find in the fall (often, your neighbors will even rake them in a pile and put them out on the road for you). In our first year, we planted seeds and seedlings directly into the cow manure, adding soil as needed, and it worked.

Part 1 focuses on theory; Part 2 discusses the benefits of lasagna gardening; and Part 3 shows how we built our lasagna garden from scratch.

My wife and I chose the lasagna garden method because we'd heard that it was cheap to set up, results in excellent fruits and vegetables, and requires little weeding once established. It's also is a great way to transform grass or unhealthy land into healthy soil. So if you've only got a small plot or patch or snatch of land, as long as it gets good sunlight, you can likely turn it into a garden with this method.

Background: I grew up in the back-to-the-land movement in Maine before becoming a travel writer and restaurant critic. I stepped back from city life and my career in 2018 to live more simply and independently on the coast of Maine. The complete video series shares the hands-on knowledge as it was taught to me by the older generations.

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