What's the easiest way of converting lawn into planting beds? I'd like to
build beds along 30 feet of fence line - maybe about 2 feet wide.

Do I just roto till the lawn? Do I remove the sod and roto till? Use grass
killer and roto till?

Thanks in advance for your input.

Bob Pauly

AuralFeast wrote:

What's the easiest way of converting lawn into planting beds? I'd like to
build beds along 30 feet of fence line - maybe about 2 feet wide.

Do I just roto till the lawn? Do I remove the sod and roto till? Use grass
killer and roto till?

Thanks in advance for your input.

Bob Pauly

Solarize or smother with an old carpet runner. Easy, and better than stripping
sod, which would rob your bed of its most fertile soil layer.

AuralFeast wrote:
What's the easiest way of converting lawn into planting beds? I'd like to
build beds along 30 feet of fence line - maybe about 2 feet wide.

Do I just roto till the lawn? Do I remove the sod and roto till? Use grass
killer and roto till?

Thanks in advance for your input.

Bob Pauly

What kind of grass is it? If it's bermuda grass, you will need to spray
it with Roundup to have any hope of ever controlling it. With other
grasses, *maybe* you can just turn the sod upside-down with a shovel and
kill the grass.

I think I would mark off and edge the beds, spray with roundup. Wait a
week and then plant over the top of the dead grass with transplants.
Mulch thickly, and keep it well watered and weeded the first year. Add
more compose and till it all up in the fall.

The topsoil under the grass will be full of dormant weed seeds waiting
for someone to disturb the soil. There's no sense in giving them their
wish that first year when you are battling the grass and trying to build
up the soil.

Best regards,
Bob

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"AuralFeast" wrote in message
...
What's the easiest way of converting lawn into planting beds? I'd like to
build beds along 30 feet of fence line - maybe about 2 feet wide.

Do I just roto till the lawn? Do I remove the sod and roto till? Use
grass
killer and roto till?

Thanks in advance for your input.


I did a bed about thirty feet by six feet last year. I used my Lee Valley
Sod Lifter (from Lee Valley Tools) to remove the sod. You could also rent a
sod cutter from a rental store. I gave the sod to a neighbor who used it to
patch some areas. After I removed the sod I used a fork to turn the soil,
then I used a tiller to break up the heavy clay. I spread about 5 yards of
mushroom compost on the bed and then tilled that in. It was a lot of work,
but definitely worth the effort. I haven't been happy with the results when
I used Round-Up and then tried to till the sod into the soil.

Two feet isn't very wide for a bed. I have always regretted making my beds
too narrow because it restricts the planting scheme to rows of plants lined
up like soldiers. Things don't have much room to grow before they are too
crowded and spilling out into the lawn. I think that six or eight feet wide
is about ideal.

GrampysGurl wrote:

I do the newspaper thing with mulch but do plant right away, not to
many issues
with weeds. Why are you suppose to wait a year??????

When I do the newspaper thing, I don't break through the barrier until
it's had a chance to smother the grass. IMHO, a season is long enough.
No need to wait a whole year. For example, the stuff that I smothered
this spring will be ready for fall plantings. The grass will be dead,
and the newspaper will have already started to break down.

--
Warren H.

==========
Disclaimer: My views reflect those of myself, and not my
employer, my friends, nor (as she often tells me) my wife.
Any resemblance to the views of anybody living or dead is
coincidental. No animals were hurt in the writing of this
response -- unless you count my dog who desperately wants
to go outside now.

On Tue, 29 Apr 2003 03:26:40 GMT, "Warren" wrote:


When I do the newspaper thing, I don't break through the barrier until
it's had a chance to smother the grass. IMHO, a season is long enough.
No need to wait a whole year. For example, the stuff that I smothered
this spring will be ready for fall plantings. The grass will be dead,
and the newspaper will have already started to break down.

This does not work with bermuda grass, only cool season grasses.

Using a sod cutter and removing the sod will give you the closest thing you
can have to a weed free bed. The weed seeds will be mostly removed with the
sod.

But you'll have one hell of a lot of sod to dispose of!

I moved my garden from a neighboring field into a corner of my yard which
was a well established lawn for 35 years. I decided on a 16'X24' plot and
surrounded it with non-arsenic treated 4'X4' posts to serve as a border.
First I tilled the lawn using my 6 HP tiller and followed with my 1.5 HP
mini tiller which made mince-meat out of the remaining sod clumps. The only
hint of having been a lawn before were a few blades of grass minus any
roots in the soil which have already decomposed. I planted it this Spring
and all is doing fine and as weed-free as my old garden was without having
to put forth any extra effort of removing the sod, hauling in new soil,
mulching or waiting for another season to plant.