It's easy if you sheet-mulch! Want a garden bed where you currently have weeds or lawn? No need to labor digging and hoeing.
What you need to have on hand before you start:
Plenty of cardboard
Compost, mulch or topsoil
A hose and water source
Here's what to do:
Decide on the area you want a garden bed and line it out with string or bricks for a marker. You sheet-mulch the whole lawn if you like.
Throw green waste, cut grass, or fallen leaves in a layer of about 1/4 inch or more on top of the selected area of sod. It's best if you use cuttings that will break down quickly, rather than branches and sticks. Dampen area with the hose.
Lay cardboard down on top of the green waste, overlapping the edges so that no light gets into the grass (or weeds) underneath the cardboard. Dampen the cardboard with a hose.
Now layer the following with at least 1 inch thickness:
1. Mulch - can be straw, dried leaves, sunflowers, old dahlia stalks, or any biodegradable yard waste.
2. Composted manure.
3. Compost or topsoil. This layer works best the thicker it is. Water well, and plant with small herbs or nitrogen fixers that tend to grow long, deep plunging roots.
Don't worry about the height. You can build your sheet mulch lasagna style up to 18 inches high, plant it, and within 3-6 months, it will have settled back to the ground level as the worms and microbes go to work making beautiful soil out of old sod in the dark beneath the cardboard. Roots from whatever you plant will help break up the old dirt, and the grass will not grow back because it's been deprived of light and air.
Sheet-mulching also reduces the occurrence of weeds later since you have not tilled up the weed seeds, but starved them from light.
If you want to plant a larger plant immediately after sheet-mulching, just punch a hole in the cardboard and plant it deeper. Go deeper than you normally would, as the sheet mulch will settle with time, and as the dirt below becomes alive.
Happy sheet-mulching
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