Yes, lasagna gardens beneficial insects go hand in hand. The layered organic matter gives helpful bugs food and shelter. Your bed draws in predators and pollinators from the first month you build it.
When I first looked under the cardboard layer of my new lasagna bed, I found dozens of earthworms within just six weeks. Ground beetles showed up next. They hid under leaf layers during the day and hunted slugs at night. By the second month I spotted ladybugs patrolling the top of the bed.
A friend of mine tracks insect counts in her garden as a hobby. She found three times more ground beetles in her lasagna bed than in her tilled plot just ten feet away. The untouched layers gave those beetles a safe home that spring tilling would wreck.
Your lasagna bed builds a food web from the bottom up. Bacteria and fungi move in first to break down the organic layers. Small decomposers like mites and springtails feed on those microbes. Predatory insects then arrive to eat pests nearby. This chain means your bed attracts its own pest control crew without any sprays from you.
Frontiers in Microbiology research shows that no-till soil supports helpful life forms. These include root fungi and pest-eating worms in the soil. Your lasagna bed acts like a no-till system since you never turn the layers. This gives the whole web of life a stable home to grow in over time.
The insects attracted to lasagna garden beds include some of your best allies. Ground beetles eat slugs and snails that damage your greens. Ladybugs consume hundreds of aphids per week. Parasitic wasps target caterpillars that chew through your crops. Hoverflies pollinate your flowers while their young eat aphid groups.
You can boost the beneficial bugs sheet mulch garden beds attract by adding companion flowers along the edges. Plant marigolds, yarrow, and sweet alyssum near your bed. Leave some leaf litter on the surface for ground beetle cover. Skip all pesticides since even organic sprays kill the good bugs along with bad ones.
Your lasagna bed does this work on its own once you set it up right. Let the food web handle pest control for you. A healthy garden with strong insect life needs far less of your time than a sprayed bed does.
I have not used a single pesticide on my lasagna beds in over three years now. The bugs handle everything. Ground beetles eat the slugs, ladybugs eat the aphids, and wasps take care of the caterpillars. Your plants grow better when you let nature run the show.
Read the full article: Lasagna Gardening Method in 10 Steps
