"James Egan" wrote:

I'm planning on planting a small garden in my back yard. Currently
there's lawn with grass growing where I want to plant. When you till the
soil, can you just mix in the grass? Or should the grass be removed
first, then tilled, and compost added?


Depends on your definition of "small", how hard you're willing to work, and
what surprises you'll find once you begin working the earth. For an area
under say a thousand square feet you're probably better off spading by hand,
turning over clumps of sod to dry so you can shake out the top soil and
remove rocks as you go, then compost the plant material (I would suggest
shaking out the top soil onto a tarp so you don't lose any to your existing
lawn and to keep it separate until later when it can be more evenly
distributed). Or you can just dig in with a good sized tiller, making
passes until all the sod is pulverized. No matter which method (or
combination thereof) there will still entail plenty of hand raking to grade
and remove rocks and debris. Figure on at least three years of tilling,
raking, picking rocks, and amending before the soil in your plot is
considered adequately prepped... rocks have a way of constantly moving to
the surface of disturbed soil, especially the first few years. Of course
preparing a garden also has a lot to do with ones personal concept of
perfection weighed against ones stamina.