Three ways to turn your lawn into garden!

Slowly my yard is being taken over by garden… veggies, flowers, fruit trees, berries. Every year I adjust, move and hone my current gardens and slowly get rid of lawn.

This year is no different! In fact I’m planning to turn WAY more lawn into garden especially due to the recent turn of events. Food security has always been important to me, but now more than ever I’m taking it seriously.

If you’re also looking to add more food or flower production to your yard read on to find a few ways I’ve dealt with getting rid of that pesky grass.

The Smother Method: Sheet Mulching/Lasagna Gardening

This is a nice way to passively smother the grass. In its basic form sheet mulching can just be a 1/2 inch layer of cardboard or newspaper on top of your lawn to smother the underlying grass.

From here you can go a couple directions: 1) amend with the proper layers for a lasagna garden or 2) top with soil and plant directly into that.

If I’m making raised beds, I’ll build my boxes right over the sheet mulch. This will ensure that no grass grows up into the boxes.

First of all stock up on cardboard (bike shops are a great place to grab lots of cardboard as all new bikes come in a huge box) or newspaper and lie that over the area you’d like to garden. It’s a good idea to do two layers of cardboard and closer to 6-8 layer of newspaper just to be safe (invasive grass can be extremely tough!).

Once the cardboard id is down, water it throroughly. Then layer from bottom to top in this order:

1) organic fertilizers per your soil test - if you absolutely don’t want to mess with a soil test you can add an all purpose one - just follow the directions on the box.

2) manure or compost

3) straw or dried leaves

4) grass clippings

5) compost or manure

6) more leaves or straw.

Water again thoroughly. I’d let this set for 2-3 months. Or if you can, let it set and decompose all summer. And you’ll have a killer garden next spring!

If you want to plant directly, add a few inches of garden soil on top of the last straw/leaf layer and plant away.

Solarization

This is a low-labor and passive method for getting rid of lawn. You can also use this in an established garden bed if you’re having excessive weed problems. The sun shines through the plastic, heating up the underlying plant material enough to kill it.

First thing after the snow melts, cut your grass short where you are planning to build your garden and water thoroughly. If the grass is already cut short from the previous fall, don’t worry about this step.

Buy or scavenge a piece of clear plastic (I tend to hoard plastic scraps for this very purpose). The bigger the better. If pieces are too small, it’s harder to weigh therm all down and you might lose some in a wind storm.

Cover the entire garden-to-be area in plastic and weigh down with rocks, lumber, fire wood, or anything else. This is probably the most important step, as you don’t want wind to pick these up and move them around. This will lead to frustration and lots of tedious work on your end!

The plastic does need to be clear - the sun shining through the plastic will heat up the underlying grass - killing it!

Now wait for 4 weeks and check! Be patient. Once the underlying grass is dead (it will turn green to yellow to brown) you are ready to garden.

Give the area a shallow till (not too deep as you may mix up deep weed seeds) or just plant right into the dead matter. I don’t advocate for regular tilling BUT it is useful to establish your new garden beds and to mix in soil amendments for the first year.

Sod Removal

This is a labor intensive method but will give you a usable garden space quickly as you don’t have to wait for the grass to die off as you do in some of the above methods.

You can either rent a sod cutter from the hardware store or manually cut and dig the sod. Once sod is removed, you can amend the soil as needed (with compost and fertilizers) and plant directly! For the first season of planting, you can double dig, rototill or broadfork (this you can do every year without any soil damage).

Then plant away!

Note that all these above methods can be used to create in-ground beds OR you can build up to make raised beds. In-ground beds are simple and inexpensive. Raised beds will heat up a little quicker in the spring and provide better drainage but you’ll have to pay for the lumber or material to build up the sides plus bring in additional soil.

Starting Seeds with Soil Blocks

New Methods

A few years ago I was inspired to change up my seed starting system to include soil blocking. I now use it exclusively.

If you’re not sure what soil blocking is, I’ll walk you through the whole process! Soil blocking requires taking a wet growing medium and using a little blocking press to create perfect stand alone squares in which to sow a seed or transplant.

I invested in a 3/4” blocker for germinating slow growers and tiny seeds and a 2” blocker for transplanting into or sowing larger or quick growing seeds. These are available from Johnny’s Seeds (my favorite online planting/growing store).

After lots of experimenting with growing medium (I’ve mixed my own, I’ve purchased all sorts of seed starting mix) I’ve settled on Pro-mix MP Mycorrhizae Organik. I purchase large bales at Southside Garden Supply each spring.

If you’re interested in trying to mix your own starting mix, here’s a recipe from Lisa Mason Ziegler. She’s author of Cool Flowers (a great book about maximizing your cool shoulder seasons for planting early in the spring or late in the fall - I’m still trying to perfect this method in a snowy climate, and honestly still sort of flailing):

Recipe

16 C sifted peat or coco fiber (I used our local Fishy Peat mix available at Mill and Feed) 

4 C of sifted compost (I used Susitna Organics humidified compost)

1/4 C greensand (available at Southside Garden Supply - let me put a plug in for this awesome local shop. Thanks to the marijuana industry, this place is loaded with great stuff for the urban farm or garden set-up)

1/4 rock phosphate (Mill and Feed or Southside Garden Supply)

6-7 C water

How To

Mix all ingredients well in a large tote or bin. One batch makes around 600 mini blocks.

If you’re using Pro-mix MP Mycorrhizae Organik or another pre-made mix, just mix a set amount of soil in a tub and add water until it’s a very wet mud.

Once your planting medium is all mixed grab your blocker, dip in a dish of water (aids in releasing blocks), firmly press your blocker down into soil medium a few times to really pack it in, scrape off excess, and while holding just above the bottom of your seeding tray depress the plunger until blocks release.

It takes a few tries to get the hang of it! Seeds can then be planted in the little depression left my the blocking pin.

Get creative about what you use for trays. I use regular seedling tray bottoms with no holes. I reuse these every year for 3-5 years! Folks also use lunch trays, plates, left over styrafoam trays, yogurt lids, etc.

Growing on

To water, less is more. Although you don’t want to desiccate your precious seedlings it’s easy to over water and get disastrous results (like damping off). Be sure to water from the bottom to preserve the delicate soil block structure. They wick up water like crazy. 

Once the 3/4” blocks are ready to transplant, plant directly outdoors or up-pot into a 2” or 4” block. I up-block into a 2” block for most of my starts.

The larger seed blockers come with a different blocking pin that creates a square indent that perfectly fits a 3/4” block.

Now go grow some epic plants!