Cutting a new garden

[southern28chick]

Hi y'all! My first post here.

I have an old garden next to the chicken yard but the trees are growing up around it and not much sunlight gets to it anymore. That garden was about 20'x25'. =

I want to cut a new garden for this Spring in my backyard since there's more room and less shade. I want this one to be about 30'x50', I want to grow a lot of corn this year.

What is the best way to kill the grass in that area? My tiller that DH got me for Christmas about 2 years ago is not getting the job done. To much clay, strong grass roots and rocks. The only thing that has worked for me is manually pulling up the grass with a garden rake. Spring's coming fast and I need help!

Here's a picture of the area, The chicken yard is straight ahead, the old garden was to the right of the chicken yard (behind all that honeysuckle) and the new garden is going to be on the left of the picture (if you were standing behind the camera the garden would be to your left going long ways, not width ways):

 

[countrygirl4513]

Hey Southern, you're gonna need a disc. Do you know anyone who has a small tractor and disc that might do it for barter? Ours had sat for years and the only thing that will turn it is a disc. Maybe even a v-ripper. But boy does it produce. After a good long rest like that it makes the best garden ever.

 

[southern28chick]

Hey Southern, you're gonna need a disc. Do you know anyone who has a small tractor and disc that might do it for barter? Ours had sat for years and the only thing that will turn it is a disc. Maybe even a v-ripper. But boy does it produce. After a good long rest like that it makes the best garden ever.

I might have to rent something. I don't know anyone with a tractor.

Right now I have the area covered with black plastic hoping that would smother the grass...not working like I planned in my head.

 

[patandchickens]

Covering the area with plastic or etc is a reasonable start, may as well do it til you can work the soil.

The thing about disking or tilling is that the grass ends up all chopped up and mixed throughout, so it will sprout back really bad for a long time and require LOTS of prolonged mulching and weeding.

IME the best/easiest way to convert lawn into garden is with a shovel. Put the shovel in as deep as you can and turn each spitful of dirt upside-down as you replace it, so virtually all of the grass ends up buried under 6-8" of dirt. (IT's easiest to clear a one-shovel-wide trench first, putting its dirt on a tarp, so you have room to work with the adjacent soil). By the time it grows its way back towards the surface, it is already seriously weakened by the effort, and relatively little will make it up there to get growing again. Especially if you put some mulch on (but even if you don't), you will have MUCH LESS of a grass problem in your garden this way.

It does take a little time - I would say it takes me something like 1 hr for a 5x10 area, although that is in very heavy clay soil - but you do not have to do it all in one afternoon, it is healthy exercise, and it will save you a LOT of aggravation once the bed is planted.

If you dig it over as soon as the soil is workable (heck, it might even be *now*, depends on your soil and your weather) then if you want you can spread some amendments like compost, composted chicken poo, last fall's leaves, or whatever else you've got on top of the dug-over soil. Leave it til you're ready to get going with the garden, then use a fork and shovel to roughly mix the amendments in and whack the clods apart with the shovel, and you're in business.

The other, more thorough, way to get rid of your grass before planting time is of course to use Roundup. Personally I would NOT, the stuff is not as harmless as they'd have you believe, but if used as per directions it will not kill you outright either and I will admit it does a decent job of giving you a less grass infested bed. LEave it sit for a few weeks at least before planting, and of course you will have to till the dead turf into the soil.

Good luck,

Pat

 

[Settin'_Pretty]

If I was going to do the area pictured, I would garden in strips and leave grass walkways in between them for access while watering etc.
I'd make the garden strips 3 feet wide so you can use black plastic to kill off the remaining grass that wants to come back.
You could rent a sod cutter and remove it in the garden areas, but I wouldn't bother if it was me.
I use one of those little tractors to water that drive themselves the length of the hose, the grass walkways are perfect in that case, it runs down the grass area and waters planting areas on both sides.
This keeps you from ever having to step into the mud.
To cut it, rent a Troy built horse tiller.
Once you get the soil right your smaller till should maintain it ok.
Rear tine is the way to go should you buy another, the Horse tiller is about $1800 so you have to be pretty serious to put that kind of money out, but smaller rear tine tills can be had for about $600.
I've found that Troy built's smaller tillers are hard to operate, they're too light and move too fast, they tend to want to skip along on top of the ground, but the Horse is the best tiller out there.
IF you go with a smaller Troy built, get the one with the counter rotating tines, it digs in and works pretty well.

There is another brand out there I think it was BCS, that is similar to the Horse, and is blue in color, I've heard good things about it but haven't run one myself.
I've run the Horse and the lighter Troy built models and Craftsman models, as well as several others, the next one I buy with be a Horse.

 

[miss_thenorth]

Can you rent a sod lifter? (not sure if that the proper name) It is what sod farms use. We rented one from an actual sod farm, then rototilled, added compost, rototilled, more amendments, rototilled.........

 

[southern28chick]

Can you rent a sod lifter? (not sure if that the proper name) It is what sod farms use. We rented one from an actual sod farm, then rototilled, added compost, rototilled, more amendments, rototilled.........

Like this:
http://www.leevalley.com/garden/page.aspx?c=2&p=10523&cat=2,42578,40769
Or do you mean a machine?

 

[Carri]

Hey Tricia!

Google "sod cutter". That thing you posted is pretty small and it would take forever to get all of that up. DH and I rented a sod cutter from Home Depot and it lifted up 2k sq ft of grass in nothing flat. The biggest headache is getting it moved someplace else.

 

[Rio_Lindo_AZ]

I'm not sure if a place full of clay would be the best place for a garden. But if its just a small layer the that will be fine. I suggest you rend or borrow a tilling tractor. Or you can Buy one of those small timming machines that look like lawn mowers.

Good Luck!
:rainbow-sun

 

[patandchickens]

I'm not sure if a place full of clay would be the best place for a garden.

Chicken Boy, if people didn't garden on clay there are entire states that would be gardenless

On the bright side clay is very nutrient-rich and moisture-retentive. I think people complain about it too much sometimes. Clay is not so bad really.

I figure if I say that often enough I won't mind so much living on clay you could make bricks out of <vbg>

But really, it's true.


Pat