Wish I could answer your question...but I remembered to put card board down:)
I hope it still works for you though, everybody deserves to have good gardening experiences.
M

Just the dirt will smother *most* of the grass below, and if things are still relatively dormant you will have even better luck. But you'll have to watch it like a hawk to catch survivors as they peek out and then cut them off as far below the ground as you can. Once your veggies are up you might try a surface layer sheet mulch around them.

I too forgot to put newspaper or cardboard down and I have only had 4 or 5 blades of grass come up and they were in one I had actually rollertilled, the other 4 didn't have any. The 3 boxes I didn't rollertill first didn't have any come up, so hopefully you'll be OK. I covered mine with about 7 inches of soil.

Howdy, got4boys (bless your heart!)

Nothing like rototilling to bring up those deeply buried weed seeds, eh? (except maybe double digging...)

Using the standard trowelful of compost in each square as I replant, I averaged 0.01 weeds per square, even with no mulch whatsoever. (I don't recommend mulch-free, but I had an enormous slug infestation.) Since I didn't mess up the delicate structure of the microbiology (some of which get very long to process nutrients for the roots), I didn't have any *recovery period* for my spring soil. That translates into faster veggie growth, better veggie nourishment.

I will never till a garden bed again. I'll just ignore the yard dirt, unless it is hosting bermuda grass. (Bermuda gets the top 2 inches skimmed off and broad, secure paths installed all around, and *then* left alone.)

When you consider how much work you save by not tilling every spring, then even replacing a few wooden boards every few years seems kinda low on my complaint list....

Hi Jacques,

I agree about tilling. We had huge gardens growing up and of course we always tilled it every spring and planted those silly long rows. I remember asking my mom when I was just little why she only planted 1 row of veggies instead of several right next to each other. I thought it was very silly to have all that walking space in between each single row.

I never had a garden since I left home, so when I heard about square foot gardening this February, it made so much sense to me that I went and cut down a big tree in my yard just so I could make me a garden. My backyard has 20+ 60 - 80 foot tall pines it it.

I hadn't studied SFG well when I started so I tilled the grass thinking it would loosen up the dirt underneath so roots could go deeper. Did about 1/2 my boxes that way but didn't till the other half. And I've had maybe a total of 10 if that many, grass and weeds come up in all my 8 boxes combined. So I'm not complaining. : )

So I agree, I'll replace boards here and there over tilling and weeding anyday. LOL

Howdy, got4 (wow....)

The same thing happened to me. All that bare dirt.... And when I asked, I got sent back into the house. (Also, my hand-hoe coordination wasn't so hot....)

Glad you have a sensible garden now--hope it grows food for a small army--cause you have one....

;-D

"The same thing happened to me. All that bare dirt.... And when I asked, I got sent back into the house. (Also, my hand-hoe coordination wasn't so hot....)"

Too funny Jacques! : )