I have DH do it. :b

you knocked this from the top for that????

how dare you.. rotflmbo ...

does he have a preferred method.. or do you just let him wing it??? and how does he work power tools into it .... lol

ken

Lol mvk3!!!!

I admit Ken, i start them the minute the idea strikes me. I tend to get these ideas about beds few and far between, so i just go to it. Last fall i ripped out this hedge of forcynthia and created a nice bed in front of my house. It came out very nice! But you are right about doing it ahead of time, and ammending the soil!

He takes a shovel (that blasted D-handled monstrosity) and removes the sod, then he turns/tills everything by hand, breaking up the soil and removing any roots/debris as he goes, then he levels/smooths it with a rake.

He does a very good job! How he gets the curves just right without marking everything off is beyond me.

I normally let it set a bit (a few days or a few weeks, depends) before I start planting anything.

In times past, I've had him hand-till in some wetted peat moss, or I've done it myself after he's dug the bed, but it depends on the soil structure of that area - in this house, it's not often necessary, I'm not living on a clay belt over here like I was on the East Side.

I've hired a man with a tractor and pull tiller, then tilled a lot of my own or got help with it, mixing in amendments at the same time, all supplemented by hand digging.

I'm going to a no till method like you suggested, been kicking it around, guess I should have done the RU in the fall, thought spring would work. Oh well.

The problem with tilling is that you will bring grass and weed seeds to the top and have to deal with those. For one long garden strip I've been waiting to widen, Ortho's Grass 'B Gon worked great but they took it off the market and is being evaluated by the EPA they told me. My garden center tells me Fertilome makes a similar product.

Hoeing and hand pulling help, of course, if you can tolerate the exertion for long enough to make a difference. Wet or dry soil, either way, it's a problem.

I try to keep chemicals to a minimum, but if plants are close and that tiny grass & weeds spring up, if you try to pull it, it just breaks off and grows back.

I mulch a lot when I can, save my leaves and use purchased. But some areas I like to leave open so plants will self seed and come back every year.

I've gone on and on about my alyssum on the WS forum, but I swear, it's pretty and smothers out practically every weed and makes nice borders, self seeds and comes back the following spring.

I've used mainly two methods:
1.Cover the grassy area with thick overlapping layer of newspaper and then a couple of inches of mulch and let that kill the grass -- then a few months later plant into it amending soil around plants as I go. I've tried cardboard too (running out of newspaper) but it doesn't kill as thoroughly as newspaper.

2. Remove sod, plant plants, amending around them as I go, add 2 inches mulch.

I never till -- I know it would make life easier in the first year or two of the new bed. But, I move so many plants in a year or two as I discover better arrangements that I end up with very soft soil after 2-3 years. I also mulch repeatedly and that breaks down and improves the soil over time.

I live in forgiving conditions, so I mostly try to plant and move plants between October and March-April but will move things even in the middle of summer if I'm willing to baby them through.

Lex

I also have 2 methods I use depending on the circumstances.
1. If I am feeling patient I use a method similar to lasagna gardening-I just build a compost pile in the area I want a garden (no chemicals needed). In a year it is ready to for plants. With this method the bed is usually raised-like a berm-but the plants benefit from the well draining soil.
2. If I want a bed NOW I remove the sod, aerate the soil with my pitchfork, then add amendments-compost, topsoil, etc. I then plant the plants and mulch. I never till-I let the worms do it for me.

Rhonda

My method is to cut the sod out but put it back in place root side up. I leave it for a week which kills the roots then put newpapers on top and my own finished compost on top - at least 6 inches. Wet it down completely and plant in the new bed in a week.

By leaving the original sod in, it provides more organic matter for the soil.

No tilling or chemicals. Last thing I want to to is kill any beneficial microbes in the soil.

I did the newspaper method on a new bed last year.

About 10:00 on a Sunday, I got a wild hair to make a new bed. :P

By 1:00, it was finished.

I was planting pretty good-sized grasses (miscanthus), so I just dug a big area around each grass after it was planted, then layered newspaper around it and topped it with mulch.

SU was amazed and thrilled with this new method. :D

so fess up.. who remembered, last fall.. to make this seasons new bed????

12 to 18 inches predicted for tonight ... yippee .. [thats sarcasm.. lol]

ken

bumping this one up also.. since i suggested a garden bed in another post

ken

I'm creating a new garden bed (planting now, not in the Spring) and I spent all morning removing sod and I only got half the bed done (it's not that large either)! Any tips to make this easier? I'm using a spade to dig in almost horizontally and am removing small pieces, square by square. I plan to finish the grass removal tomorrow and then plant my pretties later this week. I didn't know about the lasagna method, boo hoo.