I have a nice patch of grass in my back yard I want to convert to garden.
What are some good ways to get rid of the grass - kill it, turn it under,
etc. ?

In article ,
"Ook" Ook Don't send me any freakin' spam at zootal dot com delete
the Don't send me any freakin' spam wrote:

I have a nice patch of grass in my back yard I want to convert to garden.
What are some good ways to get rid of the grass - kill it, turn it under,
etc. ?



Adopt a border collie...... ;-)

I'd like to find a variety of grass that is dog proof!
--
Om.

"My mother never saw the irony in calling me a son-of-a-bitch." -Jack Nicholson

I have dug it up with a shovel and picked up the top 3 inches and piled it
up elsewhere till the grass died. Very time consuming a lot of physical
work.

You could kill it first, but that would put a lot of chemicals in the
ground. If you don't get rid of it completely it will come back to haunt
you.

Dwayne


"Ook" Ook Don't send me any freakin' spam at zootal dot com delete the
Don't send me any freakin' spam wrote in message
...
I have a nice patch of grass in my back yard I want to convert to garden.
What are some good ways to get rid of the grass - kill it, turn it under,
etc. ?

"Ook" Ook Don't send me any freakin' spam at zootal dot com delete the
Don't send me any freakin' spam wrote in
:

I have a nice patch of grass in my back yard I want to convert to
garden. What are some good ways to get rid of the grass - kill it,
turn it under, etc. ?

Digging is rough. You could use boiling water. Cook some potatoes for
mashed. Take the hot water and put it in a watering can and water
sections of the grass. Steam some green beans or carrots for dinner, use
that hot water too. Over a few weeks you can probably kill large sections
of the grass for a nice small garden. A large garden you could rent a
rototiller.

--
---
Charles Quinn

"Choosing the lesser of two evils, is still choosing evil" - Jerry Garcia

"Ook" Ook Don't send me any freakin' spam at zootal dot com delete the
Don't send me any freakin' spam wrote in message
...
I have a nice patch of grass in my back yard I want to convert to garden.
What are some good ways to get rid of the grass - kill it, turn it under,
etc. ?

Depends how big it is. You could just turn it in, or skim off the top 2" and
get rid, or if there's a huge amount, you could hire a turf stripper which
does the same but a lot quicker and neater. Then you could use the turf for
elsewhere, or you could make a loam stack. Stack your turf green side to
green side and brown side to brown side, cover the pile and this time next
year you'll have some nice compost.

Steve

By far the easiest way is cover it with cardboard or newspapers
(several layers of newspapers, or one of cardboard), cover the paper
with mulch, and plant through the mulch the first year.

"Ook" Ook Don't send me any freakin' spam at zootal dot com delete the
Don't send me any freakin' spam wrote in
:

I have a nice patch of grass in my back yard I want to convert to
garden. What are some good ways to get rid of the grass - kill it,
turn it under, etc. ?



While I haven't tried this, you could mow it really short first then try
other removal methods. We used a pick ax, straight bottom shovel, and
tiller to get our garden going last year. I found the best thing to do
with the grass is to pile it up on one end of the garden and let it sit
for about a month and till it. Repeat. (Don't try to grow anything
there yet!) When it converts to soil, you should be good.

Puckdropper
--
www.uncreativelabs.net

Old computers are getting to be a lost art. Here at Uncreative Labs, we
still enjoy using the old computers. Sometimes we want to see how far a
particular system can go, other times we use a stock system to remind
ourselves of what we once had.

To email me directly, send a message to puckdropper (at) fastmail.fm

Depends on what kind of grass. If it is bermuda about the only way to
kill it is with Roundup. No residuals to worry about.

You can use clear plastic to solarized the area.

Cut as short as you can, newspaper/cardboard topped with mulch.

Desod it with a flathead shovel and use the sod to start your compost
pile upside down.

John!


Ook wrote:
I have a nice patch of grass in my back yard I want to convert to garden.
What are some good ways to get rid of the grass - kill it, turn it under,
etc. ?

I'd vote for that last: just take the sod off. If you turn it over you
end up fighting all the grass that's trying to turn around and come up
again. If you turn over or kill it, you have to hack at pads of sod as
you prepare the bed, unless you have a really good gas tiller to chop
them up. I prefer the old fashoned way: shave off a square foot of sod
with a shovel, shake it like a bathmat, then throw it in the
wheelbarrow to compost it or use it as fill for a low spot somewhere
else in the yard. When you're done you have a soft, weed-free bed ready
to be worked.

Hello "Ook" & all;

"Ook" Ook Don't send me any freakin' spam at zootal dot com delete
the Don't send me any freakin' spam wrote in message
...
I have a nice patch of grass in my back yard I want to convert to
garden. What are some good ways to get rid of the grass - kill it,
turn it under, etc. ?

It's been fun reading all of the replies you got on how to go about
doing getting rid of the grass. But one wasn't mentioned. It's
become my preferred method of "clearing the land" so to speak.

It's easy (no hard labor), cheap (no expensive chemicals or water to
boil), and works quite quickly. Found that out when I'd spread one
out on the lawn for the few moments it took to fold and put away...

What is it?

A piece of black plastic, such as one might use as a liner under
bark chips or other landscape cover. Just that plain, flexible,
BLACK, plastic sheet stuff.

Get a chunk large enough to cover the area you want cleared, weigh
the edges down with some rocks of something...and let the sun do its
magic.

I've inadvertently killed lawn sections in as little as 10 or 15
minutes of (accidental) exposure like that--but I was living in
Sacramento at the time. They do get "a little" sun there. Since I
don't know where you're going to do this, you may find it takes
longer in Wisconsin...esp. with snow on the ground...(:-o)!

I leave it there for a few days, and all of the grass, weeds,
everything is quite dead. Then I till it under as mulch. Works
like a champ. The "kill depth" is relatively shallow, so it doesn't
really mess up your garden's ecology AFAICT...

Hope this helps...


Dusty
San Jose, Ca.

The shallow kill depth is also the problem when it comes to rhizome grasses
like Bermuda, Bahia or even Zoysia. I've had all of these recover, in short
time from black plastic or rototilling. Bahia can even survive Roundup if
you don't hit everything evenly or thoroughly with heavier than usual dose.
If you have bluegrass or fescue, take the easy way out. If you have tose
mentionned above, pull out the big guns.
Gary

"Dusty Bleher" wrote in message
...
Hello "Ook" & all;

"Ook" Ook Don't send me any freakin' spam at zootal dot com delete the
Don't send me any freakin' spam wrote in message
...
I have a nice patch of grass in my back yard I want to convert to garden.
What are some good ways to get rid of the grass - kill it, turn it under,
etc. ?

It's been fun reading all of the replies you got on how to go about doing
getting rid of the grass. But one wasn't mentioned. It's become my
preferred method of "clearing the land" so to speak.

It's easy (no hard labor), cheap (no expensive chemicals or water to
boil), and works quite quickly. Found that out when I'd spread one out on
the lawn for the few moments it took to fold and put away...

What is it?

A piece of black plastic, such as one might use as a liner under bark
chips or other landscape cover. Just that plain, flexible, BLACK, plastic
sheet stuff.

Get a chunk large enough to cover the area you want cleared, weigh the
edges down with some rocks of something...and let the sun do its magic.

I've inadvertently killed lawn sections in as little as 10 or 15 minutes
of (accidental) exposure like that--but I was living in Sacramento at the
time. They do get "a little" sun there. Since I don't know where you're
going to do this, you may find it takes longer in Wisconsin...esp. with
snow on the ground...(:-o)!

I leave it there for a few days, and all of the grass, weeds, everything
is quite dead. Then I till it under as mulch. Works like a champ. The
"kill depth" is relatively shallow, so it doesn't really mess up your
garden's ecology AFAICT...

Hope this helps...


Dusty
San Jose, Ca.

"Ook" Ook Don't send me any freakin' spam at zootal dot com delete the
Don't send me any freakin' spam wrote in message
...
I have a nice patch of grass in my back yard I want to convert to garden.
What are some good ways to get rid of the grass - kill it, turn it under,
etc. ?

Thanks to all that replied, I've been out of town and have not had a chance
to respond sooner.

No bermuda (!!). I lived in Vegas for 15 years, and there is no way to win
the war against bermuda. Up here (near Portland OR), there is no bermuda
type grasses.

It's a fairly large plot, probably 2000 square feet or so, depending on how
much my wife wants for her koi pond area . I'm not excited about shaving
the top layer off.

Black plastic - problem - there is no sunshine this time of year, it doesn't
stop raining long enough for the ground to dry.

I have tons of cardboard boxes, having just moved - maybe using cardboard to
kill it is my best bet? And then use a good gas tiller to chop up the
remains?

I'd use them, cover thickly with some type of mulch. Rake it all off
come spring and then till. Use the leftover mulch to mulch the garden.

Since you are going to dig a pond, use the dirt on the garden spot too.

Good Luck!

John!



Ook wrote:
I have tons of cardboard boxes, having just moved - maybe using cardboard to
kill it is my best bet? And then use a good gas tiller to chop up the
remains?

At an old house I would regularly make a new raised bed when I wanted
an additional garden. Procedure was simple:

(1) go to Home Depot (or similar) and buy 5-10 bags of composted manure
and treated 3x5 boards to make the edge of the bed.

(2) build the frame of the raised bed and then set down newspaper over
the inside bottom of the frame (covering the grass)

(3) cover the newspaper with the composted manure.

the grass will yellow and die within 2-3 weeks and by the following
spring (when you spade things over) the newspaper will have completely
disintegrated. The extra advantage of the paper is that it prevents
the grass from gowing up theough the 6" of manure.

nt moore wrote:
At an old house I would regularly make a new raised bed when I wanted
an additional garden. Procedure was simple:

(1) go to Home Depot (or similar) and buy 5-10 bags of composted manure
and treated 3x5 boards to make the edge of the bed.

(2) build the frame of the raised bed and then set down newspaper over
the inside bottom of the frame (covering the grass)

(3) cover the newspaper with the composted manure.

the grass will yellow and die within 2-3 weeks and by the following
spring (when you spade things over) the newspaper will have completely
disintegrated. The extra advantage of the paper is that it prevents
the grass from gowing up theough the 6" of manure.




It depends a lot on the grass. If it's bermudagrass, I recommend
spraying it with Roundup first, at the higher dosage listed on the
label. You will still end up pulling bermuda out of your garden for the
next 3 or 4 years (at least.) The only sure way of getting rid of
bermuda is to move.

If you have a cool-season northern grass, just covering it up will work.

Best regards,
Bob