Turning lawn into garden – Sod Cutter? Roundup?

After having a garden the last 2 summers and really enjoying it and learning A LOT from it, I would like to expand our garden for 2018. Currently we have a number of good sized raised beds (previous homeowners made them), I would like to expand now into our yard with a 15’x 20′ plot that is currently grass/clover and a 17’x15′ plot that is currently some taller native crp type grass (and Canada thistle…). How would I go about turning that part of yard into a garden? Is a sod cutter needed? Or spray round up then till it a few weeks later? Would the CRP type grass have too long of roots and seeds in the ground, I may be fighting a never ending battle of weeding that area in the future garden?

What other things do people do for their gardens in the fall to prepare for the spring?

In 2016 I grew Lettuce, Spinach, Green Beans, Tomatoes. 2017 included Lettuce, Spinach, Green Beans, Tomatoes, Kholarabi, Bell Peppers, different hot peppers, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, cucumbers, zucchini, summer squash. 2018 will include everything mentioned plus strawberries, sweet corn, pumpkins, melons, onions, carrots, and maybe potatoes.

Carefull, growing all the food might put your grocery store out of business.

I’d mow the areas you want tilled and then hit them both with a strong round-up mix. Let the sites rest a few days and then till. Round Up is unique in that it inerts itself as soon as it hits dirt. What hits plant matter will be absorbed very fast into the root system. A week tops for the first application to tilling. Let the areas rest again until just before frost and re-apply the round up on any emergent vegetation that got persistent. Early next spring when weeds like to manifest themselves in that fresh tilling I’d give the suckers the knock out punch with round up mixed according to the directions and wait a week to re-till and then plant the early stuff.

I did the roundup/till method and weeds seemed normal. Dunno how long I waited but the grass was very brown and dead.

Any glyphosate concentrate in water will do my favorites are glystar and buccaneer plus because they are some of the cheapest generic ones out there and kill everything it touches I also mix some powerhouse in with mine as a water conditioner and surfactent but you shouldn’t need that with such a small area. Spray the area then wait about 5 days or more and the grass will be dead you might actually notice a difference the next day depending on the health of your grass. Then till it up good and just wait for spring and if you still have some weeds and grass popping up hit it again with the glyphosate. Make sure it’s at least three days between last application and planting

I always add a surfactant to roundup or even weed b gone. It really helps keep the product on the plant for greater killing. I learned this a few years ago from a prairie restoration guy.

DTW wrote:

I always add a surfactant to roundup or even weed b gone. It really helps keep the product on the plant for greater killing. I learned this a few years ago from a prairie restoration guy.

Some weeds/grasses have an almost waxy surface on the leaves/blades which helps them survive when moisture is short in that evaporation is inhibited. Adding some Dawn dish soap, maybe a tblsn or two to a gallon of the weed killer mix will help in getting the goodies down to living plant matter.

Adding some Dawn to insect sprays works well in cutting the natural oils on bugs too….Boxelder bugs come to mind.

With a CRP type grass plot, you’re going to have to double your efforts or you’ll have the weediest garden ever seen by man. Those CRP grasses have been dropping seeds into the soil for who knows how long, so even if you kill the plants and till, the tilling will just be planting the weed seeds so the next round of weeds will come up.

Here’s what I’ve done that worked pretty well. This is for green, actively growing weeds/grasses.

1. Spray the area with Roundup (glyphosate) and wait for the grass to die. Usually 1-2 weeks. Glyphosate is a contact grass killer so it only kills green, actively growing plants. It has no residual effect in the soil, so plants must be actively growing. It will not kill seeds.

2. Mow off the dead grass if tall, rake the area to remove thatch, and then till.

3. Wait anywhere from 7-14 days until the area starts to green up with sprouted weed seeds. Then spray again with glyphosate and wait 2-3 days. This will kill the weeds that came back from seed.

4. You can now plant. Avoid deep tilling again if possible because that will simply bring more weed seeds to the surface.

This method kills off about as many of the weeds and weed seeds as is possible to get without waiting for an extended period of time. Some areas may still be green enough that you can do the first kill and till now. You may have to till one more time in the spring and then allow for a final greenup/kill cycle.

Grouse

A good surfactent that I sell in smaller bottles is called diplomat, you only need one drop of concentrate of glyphosate to hit a plant and it will kill it if it’s not resistant to it unlike contact killers glyphosate shuts down the photosynthesis process of a plant to kill it one drop will travel through the plant and kill it