I'd love to hear how this goes for you!! I think it's a great idea, but got thumped down on this idea a couple of years ago - please keep us posted!! I think it's a great idea!!

Nancy.

Nancy, I make new gardenbeds like this all the time. I never dig up grass. If I want to plant something really big like a shrub, I just dig down only right were the plant goes right thru the sod. If I was planing a garden with potted perenials lets say, I would do this same in the fall and leave it overwinter to plant in the spring. Or else do in the spring for planting in the fall. That way all the grass breaks down, the earthworms move in and you have nice loose easy to plant soil. The same will happen here and the roots will be able to go down after awhile.

I planted the last of my tomatoes in ground today. For all my complaining that I had no place for them I actually have the same amount in ground that I had last year 24. Then I have 4 in pots which I did before I figgured out were I could get the tomatoes planted in ground. So actually I have more tomato plants than I had last year.

I planted nine tomatoes up in that little high alleyway behind the backyard daylily plateu. I am not pleased with that project as it was difficult to get done and its going to be very hard to actually get to them to pick fruit during the summer. But its not a bad place for them to actually be.

So this summer when I take pictures of daylilies in bloom up on the plateau, the pictures will have tomato plants in the backround LOL!

I was planning to plant mexican sunflowers up there as I thought that would be a great looking backround for the daylilies. But it will have to be next year. I will plant some Mexican sunflowers elsewhere this year.

I still have to figgure out were to plant the cucumbers I also plant each year. I got smart and figgured out were to put the string beans but I haven't actually planted those beans yet. Too cold.

There's a farm stand near me that does something similar, except even simpler - they make a slash into the bag of compost and directly plant one tomato plant into it. They grow an entire green hose full of tomatoes this way.

I thought of just laying compost bags down and planting directly into them. But I wanted something better looking than that for my side yard. So I decided to empty out the bags and not have the ugly plastic bags to look at.