Creating a New Bed

I have made new beds in the past by digging out the grass and adding new soil and mixing all together as well as possible with a shovel. I am going to get one of the small tillers and wanted to know if I still have to dig out all the grass or can it be just tilled into the bed. We have San Augustine, if that makes a difference. I will be adding new soil to my mix to help enrich the clay that is already there.

I'm hoping that by getting it well mixed, I can speed up the process. In the past, I keep adding some every year when I re-do beds, but it is a slow process for sure. I may also throw in some shredded paper when I mix it all up. I did that in the past also and it seems to help some.

Thanks.

the tiller will take care of the grass. may have to go over it a couple times.

Great!! That is the answer I was hoping for. Just didn't want to till it in and find out that I would spend forever fighting it in the bed.

Thanks!

i meant it would till the grass. that doesn't mean that whatever seed was in the soil won't germinate. just wanted to be clear. i have a crab grass problem that likes to creep over into the tilled soil. I have the big honda tiller and it works great. i wouldn't be without my tiller.lol
but any amendments can just be dumped on the ground and let the tiller do the mixing etc.
i'm not sure what you will be planting. but to keep the grass out some sort of geotextiles may be the way to go. burlap will biodegrade in a year but the plastics are a long time and possibly a pain. or i suppose you could plant in rows and till between them. i'm not sure how tall or the spreading factors of st augustine grass.

Thanks for the clarification.

I expect to have to do some weeding of grass and other things, but didn't know if tilling it under would make it impossible to control the grass. I put down landscape cloth in some beds one year and the mulched over the top. The junky weedy grass that haunts our yard, just continued to grow underneath it. It was white as a ghost, but still growing.
Decided after that year, that landscape cloth (at least the plastic type) was more of a pain than it was worth. Everytime I wanted to change something around, I had to cut through it and then dig the hole, etc. At the end of the season, it ended up looking like swiss cheese.

I think the tiller will work for my purposes and for the first couple of years, I will just have to stay on top of my weeding. I am going to have some hibiscus and other stuff in the bed. I will mulch the bed pretty heavily and hopefully, I can stay ahead of the curve.

Getting really excited about the new purchase (of course, I won't have it for a month and besides, it is 96 degrees today, so couldn't really do anything anyway). It will come in handy for expanding a couple of beds that I have and then of course for adding amendments when I re-do beds.

Thanks.

i think the easiest is to plant in rows and till between the rows like a veggie garden. or just till one row and plant then you can reach between plants from both sides to weed and pull grass.

I'm sorry, I have to disagree. I have had miserable luck with tilled-under grass. I'm not sure what I did wrong, but that grass just came up with a vengeance and took over everything. It was as if I'd never tilled at all. :-(

lacewing, it depends on what type of grass you have up there in Indiana---I have found augustine to be very forgiving as far as not crowding in your landscape beds....bermuda grass on the other hand...:)

When we do a new bed we remove the grass by using the weedeater edger to cut it into square sod patches, then we roll each piece off and discard.

Best of luck Shuggins with your new beds/projects!

Well, here is the process that I am going to use to try this. I am going to till the grass a couple of time, then add in some soil, compost, etc (I need to raise the level of the bed some) and then till in those items. Next, I am going to plant my plants and put several layers of newspaper in as landscape cloth around the plants. Wet that down and then add my mulch. Guess I see it as kind of modified lasagna gardening.

Now if anyone sees anything horribly wrong with this idea, please let me know. Otherwise, I will let you know how it all works out.

Thanks.

shuggins, that's exactly how we do it, till, add compost, till, newspaper, mulch. The only difference is that bulbs are the only thing I plant in the fall. The new bed lays there with newspaper and mulch through the winter. Don't forget to water!

Cool. Good to know that I am not just way off base. My DH already thinks that I am slightly cracked when he found the bag of coffee grounds that I collected at work. Now I have to take home the newspaper that I have collected. He does wonder about me... On the other hand, I look at it like doing my very small part for the environment as well as making my beds better for FREE!!

Now if he just doesn't find out how much I spent on the plants for the bed, we will be in good shape!! LOL!

Thanks.

Shuggins, I always start any new bed with Roundup, this will kill the grass and any weeds that are growing in the area of the bed. Be careful though because it will kill anything green it touches. I then till in the dead grass and any additional soil conditioner, etc. Before mulching sprinkle the entire bed with Preen (do not use in vegetable gardens!) Preen will keep any weed or grass seed from gerninating.

How long before planting plants can you add killer to grass/weeds in the area?

Tir_Na_Nog wrote: How long before planting plants can you add killer to grass/weeds in the area?

As soon as the chemical contacts the soil it is no longer active, so if you turn the soil under before planting, it's ready.

It depends on what you're using--if it's plain weedkiller that's true, but there are "season long" weedkillers that last a lot longer, and the pre-emergents will continue to work for a while after they've touched soil, so if that's what you used and you're planning on planting seeds there you can't do that right away (although planting plants after using a preemergent is fine)