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9.27.2010

Vegetable Gardening: Part 2

You're back? Have you found the perfect spot for your garden and gotten sufficiently inspired over the past week? If not, check out Part 1 of my Gardening Series.

Now we need to determine the size of our garden. I wanted to make this project pretty straight-forward so I let the size of my wood determine the size of my garden:




I purchased 8 foot and 10 foot lengths of pressure treated lumber from Lowe's:



This determined that I would build an 8x10 foot garden.

Now, we need to begin to clear the grass. Measure the size of the garden and mark it with stakes or even spray paint.

We need to remove the sod. I wanted to use a chemical-free method since I would be growing food in this space and many friends and family members described the newspaper method. Simply spread several thick layers of newspaper over the desired area, holding them in place with rocks or boards, and keep them soaked. Soon the grass will die in that spot.

I'm pretty impatient. I think we all know by now I need immediate gratification when I begin a project. I layered the newspaper and kept a sprinkler on them several times the first day to really saturate the ground and hold the moisture in.



Then with brute force only a deranged-woman-in-need-of-an-instant-garden can muster...I yanked the sod out with my bare pretty pink gardening gloved hands. I used shovels and trowels and various other tools of torture to lift the edge of the sod and tore away chunks of it after a day of soaking. Waiting a week or so is much easier, but you have the week to decide.

Your mission this week is to clear the sod / kill the grass from spot where you intend to build your garden.



Meet me back here next week and will construct the box to surround your garden!

Come on back tomorrow to link up your own tutorial for Tutorial Tuesday...
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7 comments:

  1. moving sod is AWFUL....we had to move a huge section when we rebuilt our deck...seriously...hardest work ever...especially since we were moving pieces to relay in another part of the lawn...I don't really want to do that again...next time...we kill it and buy more for the other areas:)

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  2. When I did mine for my flowerbeds I just dug it up and moved it to an area of the yard that needed some grass. Sod is really easy to transplant if you need to.

    Also, if you have or can borrow a tiller you can till up the ground where you want the garden to be, wait a couple of days for the grass to die and then pick out the clumps.

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  3. Neat tip! I wonder if the newspaper kills the weeds too? We used my FIL"s tiller for ours, but still had major weeds afterwards. :(

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  4. Did you grunt and growl while you were ripping through the grass? RAWR!! ;-)~

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  5. That's interesting how quickly that worked. I know of using newspapers as weed barrier but never heard of it used to kill grass. As aggressive as our Bermuda grass is and how deep the roots go around here, I'm curious if it would work for that and other aggressive plants.

    Along the same line, we have used black plastic which gets really hot and cooks everything including seeds and roots pretty deep. I'm not sure it works as quickly though.

    Thanks for the tip.

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  6. Steve,

    I'm not sure how fast it would have worked - I never gave it a chance! I ripped it out by the roots instead :)

    Jennifer Juniper

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  7. Thanks Jennifer.

    I understand what you said now. I re-read it. I guess you left it on 1 day...2 days? Other than tearing it out the way you did, there's probably not too much that works that quickly.

    Still a good tip worth knowing if time allows.

    Thanks again.

    ReplyDelete

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