Killing Lawn for Beds

[veg4681]

I'm looking at the prospect of digging up my garden lawn to make way for more veggie beds (not raised though ). Would it make my life easier if I cover the area first to kill off the grass and that would presumably make digging and then separating the grass from soil easier. If so, how long does it take to kill the grass? Last year I dug up from fresh lawn and boy it was hard work.

[zazen999]

Hi.
Hmm...

Cant you just pop manure over the top where the grass is and pin down some cardboard; or the other way around...then when you come to plant stuff the grass should be dead - the worms should have pulled the manure/card down and broken the soil up with it and away you go.

Personally, I would nail some old wood into beds and shove manure/compost/cardboard on and leave it; but if you don't want the beds raised then you might have to dig.

Or put black plastic down [pin it to keep it there] and the lack of light will surely kill off most of the grass? By April it should be gone, or you could just cut holes in the plastic for this year for planting, and remove it at end of season?

[Birdie Wife]

Hi veg,
I'm not sure that killing off the grass would make much of a diffrence if you still have to dig the ground over I'm afraid - you'll still have to deal with the roots. if you have a fair sized plot to take the turf off, you could find out how much it would cost to hire a turf stripper like the one here. You can then set the turf aside to compost down (even beter if you can layer it with manure) and dig over the exposed soil, adding fertiliser or compost/manure as you go.

[veg4681]

Hi veg,
I'm not sure that killing off the grass would make much of a diffrence if you still have to dig the ground over I'm afraid - you'll still have to deal with the roots. if you have a fair sized plot to take the turf off, you could find out how much it would cost to hire a turf stripper like the one here. You can then set the turf aside to compost down (even beter if you can layer it with manure) and dig over the exposed soil, adding fertiliser or compost/manure as you go.

Would have been nice to use a turf stripper (didn't know that sort of thing was available) but for the cost of hiring one for a relatively small area of lawn, not worth it. Guess I'll have to do a bit of back breaking digging work . I think I'll just cover the area I want to dig up for a few weeks as nothing really can be planted till April and besides it's horribly cold to be out doing the garden work.

[bridget mc laughlin]

I think that the best way of all is simply to cut the grass as close to the ground as possible(best to use a strimer),after this cover the area very thickly with manure.Make sure that there are no bare spots or the grass will just grow back.

[terrier]

I'm increasing the size of my garden plot each year by a few square yards at a time. I let the grass grow long then strip the turf off and stack it. After the grass dies off, I'm left with a stack of loam. Potting compost for free!

[momol]

Veg, I am no expert in digging too but do it slowly a bit at a time and start covering the planned site now. It will be hard work but if you do it a bit by bit, it will be done eventually plus not breaking your back and if need be ask DH's help. All the best .

[Flummery]

When I reclaimed my veg plot from grass (I can't in all justice call it lawn!) I stripped the turf, double dug and buried it upside down at the bottom. It meant I had one spit's worth of good soil to plant in for the first year and by the second year, if I dug deeply enough, the turf had rotted down. It was slow but successful and meant I didn't have to have a whopping great turf stack in the garden for a year or two. I did a row a night when I got home from work. It took several months but I would do it the same way again.

[Nicos]

We ( well - my OH) stripped off the turf to a depth of a normal sod - ie 2" , and stacked it upside down to rot and compost down.
We mixed it with compost the following year, and had a lovely pile of topsoil for use the following year.
The soil under where the turf had been was double dug with manure and left to breakdown.
We then built the raised beds on top of that by infilling the beds from where the paths would be.
One thing I wished we'd done was to have a couple of beds with a membrane at the base of the bed to prevent the bindweed from pushing up !!

[moggssue]

I did the same as Flum - though I had help from OH so did it in a couple of weekends. I added some compost and topsoil to make a slightly raised bed (the height of a decking plank, which I used to edge it). Had great success with it last year, my first, with caulis, calabrese, courgettes, carrots, parsnips, french beans, peas and spinach. For some reason my onions and garlic were a total failure - probably more to do with the weather than the soil though.

If you can stand the digging work, I'd say thats the way to go veg4681.