It's time to start next year's garden (EASY)

For those of you thinking about starting a garden, or expanding the one you have, I have an easy way to do. (Easy means less effort) This works very well on sod.

1) Start your new beds in the fall.
2) Frame in new beds using untreated lumber (this wouldn't work for those of you with long rows so you can skip that part).
3) Cover the new beds with a thick layer of Autumn leaves.
4) Wait until Spring and plant your vegetables.

That's it.

What I've found is by covering the sod it breaks down without my help. By Spring all that's left is soft, loamy soil. No digging or chopping up the sod.
For the frames I use 10x2. Your beds can be whatever size you want. I've got 4' by 12' for most things and some 4' by 4' for permanent beds of asparagus, horseradish, Rhubarb, etc. So far the untreated lumber has lasted over ten years.

 

Welcome to Survival Monkey @mrghostwalker. Do you till your leaves into the soil? I have always worked them in.

 

I tried lasagna gardening one year. I layered down cardboard, probably 10 layers deep. Then leaves. Coffee Grounds. Newspaper. Rabbit poop. More leaves. Later rinse repeat. Oh the wire grass I layered 2 foot of stuff on top absolutely loved it. Prettiest raised beds of grass you ever saw the following summer. Looked like I had 2 ft high raised beds of hay waiting to be baled. The peppers I actually planted there, OTOH...

(y'all southerners who are thinking of trying this.... napalm the bermuda first.)

 

This.

 

Nope- just leave them be and use them as mulch. Add more the next year.

 

Bermuda, not so much of a problem here. That F'n crab grass, however!! Covered with cardboard (to kill it....HA!!), ~11" of soil mixed on top of that, then planted. Bordered 8" around the boxes, on the outside, in the hopes it would keep the crabgrass out of the boxes (HA, again!!). Pulling out some old pumpkin vines this morning I found, no kidding, a crabgrass runner that was at LEAST 4 feet long, coming out from under the box!! Starting to think the only way to get rid of that stuff, is to follow Ripley's (from Aliens movie) advice, and "Take off, then nuke the site from orbit"!!

@mrghostwalker I understand that most people advise to stay away from treated lumber, but that advice goes back to the days when they used chemicals that included arsenic, to prevent insects from eating up the wood. Different chemicals are used, these days, that are more plant, and people, friendly. So unless you have the bank account to be able to afford cedar or redwood (and the means to obtain it), pressure treated lumber works quite well. Especially when you're first starting out, before you want to sink a bunch of $$$ into building above ground boxes.

Heck, I (and others) have been eating off this garden, all summer long....

...without ANY ill effects, and my boxes were built with pressure treated 2x6 lumber, stacked 2 high.

See? ZERO ill effects!!