Any tips on making a vegetable bed in a lawn?

[Sue W]

I have a typical Ontario garden - large area of lawn with a couple of trees and clumps of perennial flowers around the edges. I have been gradually adding vegetable plots over the last few years but digging up the turf is hard work. I'd like to make a decent sized plot to grow potatoes which rather exclude the use of landscape fabric.
I did hear of somebody covering parts of the lawn after the snow melts with thick layers of newspaper and mulch and gardening on top of that. Apparently the grass and weeds die because of lack of sunlight. Has anybody tried this?
(Newsprint here is made with safe ink, and I'll try to get a thick layer of mulch which hasn't seen pesticides).
Any other ideas?

[FarmerAmber]

We have done this in Kansas. We use raised beds with wooden sides. We put up the sides around the section of lawn we were converting, then layered in alternate layers of topsoil/compost and raw green material (hay or grass clippings in our case). We used lawn bags (large brown paper sacks) as the smothering layer right on top of the grass. Newspapers would work too - just be sure to use several layers (like 6 or so). The beds we made this way did very well last year (their first year) and we didn't have any issues with the grass growing up through the layers. We used city made wood mulch in the aisles on top of weed cloth to smother the grass there too. Hope this helps and I'd be happy to answer any questions!

-Farmer Amber

[Jess]

So, did you garden on top of the compost (which was on top of paper) right away? How long does it all take to decompose down? Did you dig in / do you plan to dig in at all?

[FarmerAmber]

Sorry - I haven't checked the forum in a while. We planted straight into it within a couple of weeks of setting up the beds. The only digging we've done in them was this spring we tilled in a cover crop that had overwintered in a section of one of them. We added some more layers (compost and old hay) to get ready for this year.

[Chris]

Sue,
I have successfully smothered a lawn with sheet mulching. The process was quite easy.

Check out this example: http://onestraw.wordpress.com/sub-acre-ag/sheet-mulch/

[Jo]

Hi Sue!
I absolutely recommend using newspaper and cardboard as barriers to start a new garden area. On my farm it's the way I find easiest, most earth-friendly, most biologically sustainable and best of all, it's body friendly. My feeling is it's best not to disturb the infrastructure of the soil. The earthworms and other insects work so hard to create permeability and friability, and we humans do our best to get in the way of what works, by over doing what should be simple and natural. Ruth Stout set me straight years ago. Look her up. Though she's passed on, her wisdom still remains.
As with anything else, there is a trick, and that is, to make it a thick enough layer, and wet it thoroughly before you build up.
I hope that helps. Next time I may try to convince you to keep a few animals to help you create your own compost!

[Lori]

We do this sheet mulching straight onto the grass. It works well. Try the local council or an architect or building company because they often go through huge amounts of paper at blueprint poster size. This is really good quality paper and can reduce the workload for you when you sheet mulch. They are often glad to have it taken away. We also throw some manure type of thing on top of the paper - like stable manure or pelletised chicken manure because we feel that it lures the bigs and worms to start working their way through the paper. Hessian bags are also good as is carpeting that has been pulled out of a house if it is old fashioned woven carpet that is wholely or mainly natural fibre.

If your summer is hot enough, you can buy black plastic off a roll. Its really big and they generally use it in house concrete foundations. You can put it over the lawn and weight the edges down for a couple of weeks in heat and it will kill the grass underneath so you can just dig the garden over in a conventional way. I think its a bit hard on the bigs and worms though but they will recolonize.

[Ed Bryant]

Hi Sue,

I way prefer cardboard to newspaper. It is thicker and decomposes more slowerly allowing some perennial lawn weeds to die as well as the grass. You don't need to deal with as many layers and the worms (here in Spokane) seem to like it better. You'll need a small stock tank or a child who like to play with water to get the cardboard wet enough. I can probably send you a photo or two of my lawn going "adios" several years ago with cardboard and fresh Ponderosa pine needle sheet mulch.

[greenmulberry]

I have done this before. (I live in Iowa)

Here is what I did. Take newspaper, lay down several layers, frame in the bed with whatever you want, or don't if you want a free form bed. Fill frame with finished compost (80%) with the rest being grass clippings, chopped leaves, and some dirt I had leftover from planting trees. I planted in it the same day! Had a great garden last summer. I didn't really follow a formula for how I filled it, but I knew the finished compost was a good growing medium.

This year, I am putting in some more beds, I already spread out cardboard and filled them with the compost. I have no doubt it will work again in the new beds, and I already have garlic sprouting in the ones I made last year.

The lawn never made it up through the layers of newspaper, by the way.

[Joanna Bailey]

Look out for wireworms!

We tilled up a big section of lawn after gardening is raised beds our first year. It wasn't until we went to harvest our potatoes that we learned about wireworms....from what I've read, a few years of keeping the area cultivated should encourage them to leave, and letting our hens do some fall & spring tilling helps too.

Here's my blog post about them (plus the awful tomato blight we got that year as well) - http://seventrees.blogspot.com/2007/09/tomato-blight-and-wireworm-w...