My little lady and I finally got out of apartment living to buy a
little condo with about 500 square feet of grass that we'd like to
turn into a vedgie garden. So.. .I went out and got a shovel, a hoe
and a pickaxe. We weeded out what wasn't grass and set to work
breaking up the sod.

Now, we live in Hawaii so the sod is thick, thick, thick. So thick,
in fact, when I pull a chunk out and examine the cross-section, it's
hard to decide where grass+air ends and roots+soil starts. It's
coming up like carpet.

How do I break this up to be ready for vedgies?

First, I'd spray it with roundup to kill it, so you don't have as much
problem of it coming back. Then, trying to dig out that much by hand will
be a real back-breaker, so do yourself a favor and rent a sod-cutter.
They usually aren't much more than about $20 per hour, and they'll let you
take out quite a bit of sod in an hour.

As an example, one of my neighbors took out more sod in a single hour
with a sod-cutter than they were able to take out in 4 hours of working at
it by hand.

steve