Written by joe foster.
Removing grass for garden bed.
There are many different methods you can find online to guide you from renting a sod cutter to placing cardboard over the grass in the fall so that the grass is all dead decomposed.
However most grasses are perennial plants that can regrow if even a small bit of root remains.
One of the first steps to making your own vegetable garden or new flower beds is to remove the grass from your yard.
Slice under the sod with a spade to free the sod from the soil.
Lawns have many good properties but it can be some of those very same properties that make it hard to get rid of when you want put in a garden bed.
Cut the existing sod from the garden bed with a spade.
One advantage of tilling is that the original organic matter is retained in the garden as the sod is turned under.
Any method will take time but some will be easier and or longer lasting than others.
I have personally tried 5 different ways to get rid of grass.
Cutting the turfgrass area into pieces and prying out and discarding the pieces of sod is arguably the very best way to remove the grass and prepare the area for a garden bed removed entirely the grass won t grow up through your new garden although you do need to take.
Removing the sod by hand and the back and the legs.
So complete removal involves carefully loosening the soil and tugging out as much of the roots as possible.
In this guide i will show several common methods with pictures that i have used over the years and found to be the most effective.
Let s get the most brutal method out of the way first.
5 ways to remove grass for a garden or flower bed.
One of the hardest jobs in the garden is to remove grass to build a flower bed vegetable garden or to clear an area for a patio.
After tilling the bed remove and shake the soil from any remaining clumps of grass.
Small grass infestations in a garden can be addressed by hand removal.
A dirty job removing grass.
Raised beds are the ultimate in no till gardening.
Cut the sod into sections to make removal easier.