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Help me start my new garden!
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Posted: Nov/07/2008 11:22 AM PST
Hi! I live in an urban area and I plan to start a vegetable garden. I just moved into a house that has a nice big yard, whereas before I was living in apartments. Here's the thing: The lawn is thick with grass. I'd like to cut out a fairly large area to grow in. Here's what I'm wondering: Should I create the area now before the ground freezes or wait until spring? Should I take the grass out and compost it or should I till it into the soil? What kind of tool would be best for doing all of this? Any suggestions on dimensions for the garden? I was going to go with 16'x16'. Will that be an overwhelming size to start with? Give me a play by play! I've never started my own garden before, although I've helped with planting in already established gardens. Any advice would be quite welcome, thanks! |
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Posted: Nov/20/2008 5:55 AM PST
Hi!! I have been going all over my back yard and turning much of it into beds. You have different ways you can tackle this. If you use a flat spade, you can skim the sod by running it about a half inch underthe sod and lifting it. It is a very effective and immediate way to remove the grass. If you do this on such a big area, I recommend sharpening the spade and eating your wheaties. I do it this way sometimes if the sod is easy to remove. It really does a good job and you can start on your garden immediately. BUT----The less labor intensive way is take a bunch of old newspapers (not the glossy ones), open them and lay them out over the area you want to be the garden. I usually wet them so they don't blow away. Make them a few pages thick and make sure the edges over lap. Then I put compost or mulch on top of them. What happens is, the paper eventually decomposes, but mean while, it sort of smothers what is under it and the heat of the compost helps kill the grass as well. I have done this in the summer. I would suppose you could do it in the fall and it may work just as well. The draw back is, you still have the grass roots to dig through, but they will eventually break down. So far this has worked for me, but my grass is not very healthy to begin with. I would also recommend heavy mulching for the next few seasons to be sure the grass roots stay smothered. Just a note---I am on organic gardener, and the ink used on papers these days is mostly soy-based ink so it isn't toxic, if you are unsure, you could look into what type of ink is used by your local paper! |
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Posted: Nov/25/2008 4:13 AM PST
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