Lasagna Gardening: A New Layering System for Bountiful Gardens: No Digging, No Tilling, No Weeding, No Kidding!

This intriguingly titled book--which has nothing to do with pasta and everything to do with layering--serves up a time-saving approach to gardening that will come as welcome news to the overworked and the horticulturally challenged. Lanza exhorts readers to build soil up, ""instead of digging down,"" by simply layering organic materials onto a prospective garden site and close-planting directly into it. Together with generous mulching, she contends, this process eliminates some of gardening's more labor-intensive chores--tilling, double-digging, weeding and frequent watering. After outlining her basic premise, Lanza zeroes in on the specific areas of interest, including vegetables, herbs, berries and flowers, providing an abundance of detail on a wide selection of planting materials. Although this method of creating instant raised beds is not new, Lanza has refined it into a step-by-step procedure that she conveys with simplicity and clarity, and her chatty, first-person narrative makes the text a pleasure to read. Of particular interest to fledgling gardeners, this title will also appeal to those looking for new ways to streamline the demands of their favorite pastime. (Nov.)