Los Angeles Times - 07.03.2020

Stephanie DeAngelis

For The Times

L

ASAGNAmulching is

kind of a miracle, the

closest thing to an

easy fix for lousy

garden soil, suppress-

ing weeds and rebuilding our

disappearing topsoil.

Added bonus: The vital

starting ingredient — card-

board — is available for free, in

mass quantities, from grocery

stores, dumpsters and recycling

bins.

Not convinced? Just check

the lush growth at the L.A.

Arboretum’s Crescent Farm,

where six years ago a group led

by artist-in-residence and inter-

pretive horticulturist Leigh

Adams converted nearly an acre

of compacted old lawn, overrun

with nut grass, into a croissant-

shaped, water-wise garden of

edibles, native plants, wildflow-

ers and trees.

Arboretum botanists were a

little dubious too, in the begin-

ning, said Adams, a 70-year-old

sprite with purple glasses and

hair, “but now the county has

claimed this as one of its best

management practices. It’s

really gratifying to have that

change take place while I’m

here.”

“I was show-me skeptical,”

admits botanist Frank McDon-

ough, who works as Los Angeles

County’s botanical information

consultant at the Arboretum,

advising anyone with questions

about plant-related matters.

“I’m not an expert on the actual

technique; I just know the

theory behind it and I know it

works.”

The key to creating beautiful

soil is to attract beneficial mi-

crobes, such as mycorrhizal

fungi, which help roots pull the

moisture and nutrients they

need from the soil to grow heal-

thy plants. And it turns out that

mycorrhizal fungi love the cellu-

lose and glue in cardboard, the

same way children love sugary

cereals, Adams said.

The beauty of the “lasa-

gna” process is, once you

assemble your materials,

you can have excellent

plantable soil within a day,

Adams said. And many of

the ingredients — cardboard,

leaves, lawn clippings, stable

bedding, homemade compost

and wood chips — are items you

can collect for free from around

your own home, your neighbor’s

yard or your friendly neighbor-

hood tree trimmers, who would

rather leave their wood chips in

your yard than pay to dispose of

them at the landfill.

Here’s the recipe:

Step 1: CardboardThis is your

first and non-negotiable ingre-

dient—the “noodles” in your

“lasagna,” crucial because it is

dense enough to suppress

weeds and grass while attract-

ing the mycorrhizal fungi that

will create a delicious, nutri-

tious soil for your plants.

Start collecting and break-

ing down boxes from friends

and family, dumpsters, grocers

and retail stores. (Just don’t use

cardboard with a shiny finish.)

Pizza boxes usually can’t be

recycled but they can be used in

your lasagna mulch. And if

you’re covering a large space, try

to find big boxes from stores

that sell appliances, bicycles

and/or drapes.

Either way, collect double

what you think you’ll need,

because you’ll use it all and still

wish you had more, Adams said.

WARNING: Do not use

purchased sheet cardboard,

Adams said. Arboretum offi-

cials were horrified to discover

Adams dumpster-diving for

boxes, so they purchased agri-

cultural cardboard, which

seemed perfect because it came

in flat sheets, she said. But the

sheets curled and dried out, and

she discovered they didn’t have

the tensile strength and ingredi-

ents that make waste card-

board so attractive to fungi.

“Cardboard boxes have more

fiber in them and glue, all ar-

ranged in neat little rows with

oxygen traps, and no fungi can

resist that,” she said. “Think of

it as a birthday party for your

fungal starts, because mycor-

rhizal fungi metabolize glue as a

sugar.”

Break down the boxes, re-

moving tape and staples, and

then lay them flat on the space

you want for your garden,

whether it’s bare soil, weeds or

grass. Be sure to overlap the

cardboard so there are no ex-

posed areas, Adams said. If you

are covering grass, Adams

recommends digging out the

grass around the edges of your

space, about 8 inches in and 6 to

8 inches deep, so the cardboard

can cover the remaining grass

completely.

Step 2: Water thoroughlyGet-

ting the cardboard wet before

you add the other ingredients

helps start the decomposition/

composting process in your new

soil. Step on the cardboard as

you wet it down so it conforms

to the shape below, and don’t be

afraid to create mounds and

contours in your yard. Flat

yards are “an artifact of the lawn

mower,” Adams said. “Creating

a curvaceous surface is sexier,

gives you more planting area

and captures more rainwater

because it has highs and lows.”

Step 3: Start layeringHere is

where your other layers come in.

Your goal is to have at least 8

inches of green waste/mulch

covering that cardboard; Ad-

ams said she’s done layers as

tall as 18 inches. And remember

you’re basically creating a kind

of large compost pile, so you

want layers of carbon (such as

dry leaves, shredded news-

paper, straw bedding and wood

chips) and nitrogen (such as

grass clippings, kitchen scraps,

coffee grounds and compost).

If you use grass clippings,

apply them lightly, mixed in

with other materials, so they

don’t get matted and form a

barrier that repels water, Ad-

ams said. And if you use news-

paper, shred or crumple the

paper so it doesn’t mat and

block oxygen to the soil. Straw

mostly adds oxygen to the soil,

she said, but straw bedding is

even better because it includes

the added punch of aged ma-

nure and urine. Adams recom-

mends against using bedding

from race tracks, however,

because of the drugs that race

horses are given.

After a layer of carbon and

nitrogen, add more cardboard,

if you have enough, wet it down

and then cover it thickly —

about 8 inches worth — with a

mulch of wood chips or leaves.

If you prefer to buy mulch,

Adams’ favorite place is Cal

Blend Soils in Irwindale, but she

also recommends talking to

local tree trimmers about leav-

ing their wood chips in your

driveway and using that for your

mulch. Just make sure you

know what kind of trees they’re

trimming because seeds from

Trees of Heaven (Ailanthus

altissima) and palm trees

sprout easily and are quite

invasive.

MAKE A

LASAGNA

TO BOOST

YOUR SOIL

BY JEANETTE

MARANTOS

Jason ArmondLos Angeles Times

REDUCE, REUSE,

REPLENISH

ZERO-waste

store Other-

wild, top and

above, sells

containers and

the products

to fill them.

R

UNNING LOW
on laundry de-
tergent and
dishwashing
soap usually
means stocking
up the next time
we get groceries.
But a new crop
of stores are offering a zero-
waste alternative.
They’re called refill stations.
You bring your empty contain-
ers and fill them back up.
These stores are more hip
than hippie. Many are owned
by young women who started
reducing plastic in their own
lives and wanted to help others
to do the same. The individual
products differ from store to
store, but most offer unscented
versions of personal care items
like shampoo and lotion that
are also free of additives and
preservatives like sulfates,
phthalates and parabens.
Often, they are comparably
priced to what you’d pay for a
new bottle of a similar product,
and in some cases, it’s actually
a much better deal.

DOES IT MAKE A
DIFFERENCE?

Your blue recycling bin has an
ugly secret: Not everything you
put into it gets recycled.
A big part of the problem is
the vanishing market for recy-
cled materials abroad. A little
over two years ago, China an-
nounced it was no longer ac-
cepting most recyclable plastic
and paper from other coun-
tries. Since then, countries
around the world have strug-
gled to find somewhere willing
to take those materials. With-
out anyone to recycle the recy-
clables, the process is far less
financially viable: RePlanet,
California’s largest operator of
recycling redemption centers,
shut down in August. Burbank
Recycle Center resorted to
sending recyclable materials
directly to landfills.
“We have this massive plas-
tics problem and we can’t
recycle our way out of it,” said
Nick Lapis, director of advo-
cacy for the environmental
organization Californians
Against Waste. Consumers
have to make changes if they
want to put a dent in the esti-
mated 234 pounds of plastic
produced per person per year
in the United States.
Using the refill stations not
only saves plastic, Lapis said,
but also sends a strong signal
to manufacturers that consum-
ers want alternatives.
“One of the good things
about plastic is that it is dura-
ble and lasts a very long time.
That’s also the bad thing,” he
said. “But in terms of reusing it
for putting more detergent in
the bottle or whatever, that’s

perfectly reasonable.”

So your bottles can have a

second life — and the whole

process can have a much bigger

impact than you might think.

Here’s how it works.

HOW TO USE

A REFILL STATION

Step 1:Bring or buy a con-

tainer.

As Angelenos, we’ve trained

ourselves to bring reusable

bags when we run errands.

Some of us also carry reusable

straws and cutlery. Is it really

such a stretch to start bringing

clean bottles and jars too?

Rachel Berks, founder and

chief executive of Otherwild, a

general store and refill station

in Los Feliz, doesn’t think so.

“We all half-time live out of

our cars anyway,” said Berks,

who splits her time between

L.A. and New York City. “I

always have empty bottles in

our car in L.A.”

At some locations, there’s

even a bin of donated contain-

ers where you’ll find empty

Mason jars or similar contain-

ers. But not always: Stephanie

Cochrane, owner of the Waste

Less Shop in Manhattan

Beach, pointed to where some-

one had dropped off an empty

tequila bottle.

Step 2:Weigh your container.

Find the weigh station in

the store and determine the

weight of your item. The store

will have a way for you to mark

your bottle, either with grease

pencils, dry-erase markers or

stickers, or just type the weight

into your phone.

If you bring a container from

home, it doesn’t have to be

completely empty: You only

pay for what you fill up.

Step 3: Fill up. Choose which

product you want and start

pumping. If you’re picky, don’t

worry about filling your con-

tainer all the way. The most

popular products are dish soap

and laundry detergent.

“You can try a little bit, but

you don’t have to purchase the

entire 8-ounce or 16-ounce

bottle in the store to see if you

like the product,” said Leslie

Campbell, founder and chief

executive of Sustain L.A. in

Highland Park.

Step 4: Bring your bottle to the

register and pay.

The cashier will weigh your

bottle again and subtract the

starting weight to give you the

total. Prices vary, but at most,

the by-weight cost of house-

hold cleaners in particular

worked out to about the same

or less as buying a new bottle

from the store.

Cleaning fluids sold as a

concentrate are probably the

best deal: At Sustain L.A.,

all-purpose spray household

cleaner costs 30 cents an ounce

and is meant to be diluted in a

gallon of water. That means a

gallon of cleaner will set you

back barely a quarter of a

penny per ounce. Compare

that to a three-pack of Mrs.

Meyers Multi-Surface Every-

day Cleaner, 24 cents per ounce

on Amazon.

Other things are more ex-

pensive, particularly personal

care and beauty items like

deodorant ($6 per ounce of Fat

to the Moon deodorant at

Sustain L.A.) and face serum

($20 per ounce of Noto Bota-

nics Deep Serum at Other-

wild). Those products tend to

be free of preservatives like

sulfates and parabens and

made with organic and sustain-

ably sourced ingredients.

Ready to try it?See a list of

refill stations in and around

L.A. at latimes.com/lifestyle.

ANGELENOS HAVE ALREADY TRAINED THEMSELVES

TO BRING THEIR OWN BAGS ON GROCERY STORE RUNS.

ARE REUSABLE BOTTLES NEXT? BY JESSICA ROY

F4 S LATIMES.COM

Photographs byJason ArmondLos Angeles Times