Lawn to Garden

Do you have a sunny patch of lawn you could transform into a garden spot? The easiest way to convert a lawn into a garden does not employ even as much as a single shovel. Sheet mulching—a simple technique that involves layering organic materials right over the turf—kills the grass and leaves develops a garden bed with rich soil. A considerable amount of organic debris goes into the bed construction, so that stockpile of autumn leaves and yard trimmings, composted manure, and garden waste will come in handy. If you don't have said stockpile, you can go to the garden center and buy compost in bags.

Mark off the area of lawn where your garden bed will be.  Scalp the grass within the outline with a lawn mower. Add your 2 x 6 or 2 x 8 frame(s) if you use them. A four foot by eight foot framed raised bed will grow a lot of veggies!

Spread a 2-inch layer of compost or composted manure over the bed. This helps encourage microbial activity in the soil and speeds decomposition. Moisten the compost well.

Cover the compost with overlapping pieces of cardboard to smother the underlying vegetation and prevent light from reaching any weed seeds. Soak the cardboard with water.

Spread a 2-inch layer of compost over the cardboard and top it with up to 18 inches of mixed organic material (grass clippings, leaves, straw, seaweed, garden debris, farmyard manure, or more compost).

Include vegetable and fruit scraps and coffee grounds from the kitchen in the layers of organic matter.You can add kitchen scraps over the next few weeks by burying them in the bed. Alternate locations within the bed (don't bury scraps in the same place twice) to provide good coverage of nutrients, and to hasten decomposition.

For vegetable beds, top with a couple of inches of straw if you have it or about 6 inches of grass clippings. For ornamental beds, top with 4 inches of wood chips. In arid climates, water the bed as needed to keep the materials moist but not soaking wet. Soil microbes and earthworms will work to decompose the organic materials, including the cardboard and sod. The kitchen scraps, compost, and moisture will attract them, or you can add them to your bed.  (Get over to the sporting goods store and get some red wigglers, go fishing, bring back the left over worms to add to your garden bed!)

By the time temperatures allow planting out (the frost-free date, give or take a week or two), your bed should be ready.