Peter Pan wrote:
the lot is 1/3 of an acre

If it was small enough I was going to suggest shaving the organic
matter off with a shovel, but that sounds like too big of a job (might
be what you meant by "thatching").

Maybe you can rent a rotary hoe and plough it all under, once the
whole lot is dead? Or were you just getting rid of *some* of the
existing grass? It's often easier to kill off the whole lot with
glyphosate (Roundup, etc.) and start from scratch.


BTH