A planting bed of 1,000 square feet is an awful lot of area to try and cover with mulch, it becomes much easier if you can think that over 1/2 of the space in that large plot is really wasted space, paths between rows, and you could much better utilize the material you have by concentrating it on a series of 4 x 4 planting beds. That would be 30, maybe 31, 4 x 4 planting beds that could be made via the Lasagna method and intensly planted, although with proper planting that many would not be needed.
What is needed to improve the soil depends on what the soil is now. Have that friend, if they live in New York also, contact the Cornell University USDA Cooperative Extension Service about having a good, reliable soil test done and then dig in with these simple soil tests,
1) Structure. From that soil sample put enough of the rest to make a 4 inch level in a clear 1 quart jar, with a tight fitting lid. Fill that jar with water and replace the lid, tightly. Shake the jar vigorously and then let it stand for 24 hours. Your soil will settle out according to soil particle size and weight. A good loam will have about 1-3/4 inch (about 45%) of sand on the bottom. about 1 inch (about 25%) of silt next, about 1 inch (25%) of clay above that, and about 1/4 inch (about 5%) of organic matter on the top.

2) Drainage. Dig a hole 1 foot square and 1 foot deep and fill that with water. After that water drains away refill the hole with more water and time how long it takes that to drain away. Anything less than 2 hours and your soil drains too quickly and needs more organic matter to slow that drainage down. Anything over 6 hours and the soil drains too slowly and needs lots of organic matter to speed it up.

3) Tilth. Take a handful of your slightly damp soil and squeeze it tightly. When the pressure is released the soil should hold together in that clump, but when poked with a finger that clump should fall apart.

4) Smell. What does your soil smell like? A pleasant, rich earthy odor? Putrid, offensive, repugnant odor? The more organic matter in your soil the more active the soil bacteria will be and the nicer you soil will smell.

5) Life. How many earthworms per shovel full were there? 5 or more indicates a pretty healthy soil. Fewer than 5, according to the Natural Resources Conservation Service, indicates a soil that is not healthy.
to see what their soil is now and what needs to be done to it.
If she covers the soil now with cardboard, or newspaper, and a mulch there would be no real need to plant a cover crop

kimmsr,

Thanks for taking the time to post all this info. Good points about the beds/ paths.

Should she do these tests on the soil as it is now, or in the spring after the leaves and straw have had some effect? Also, please clarify what you mean in your last two lines above -- something got chopped up in the sentence.

g'day egganddart,

i would also suggest that you see our straw bale garden page there are lots of ideas on set up there, my thinking would be to cut the 100k/sq/feet into beds of managemable size.

if you visit please consider a donation to help us keep the page online.

len

Here is a link that might be useful: len's garden page

Since you want to know what is there now, test the soil now so you have time to make adjustments needed before planting time. Many people will put "fertilizers" and lime on their soil just before planting and those will not have time to properly react in the soil, and the soil bacteria will not have time to work on them to feed the plants.
The single best time to prepare a garden for planting is the fall before you are to plant.

It's probably too late to use mulching techniques to kill off the grass and still get a cover crop grown before frost. She might either focus on using the cardboard/mulch to sheet-compost the area and kill the grass or rent a tiller to do some shallow tilling to chop the grass and plant a quick-growing crop like buckwheat right away.

Not sure about down in the Hudson Valley, but here in Maine straw is ridiculously expensive. ($7.50/bale.) Tell your friend to cash in her IRA or maybe take a second mortgage on her house before she orders enough straw to use the so-called lasagna scheme on 1000 square feet or does a huge straw bale garden.

I grew up, gardened and ran a small market garden in the Hudson Valley. The clay soil was pretty rocky there but it was fertile. Maybe your friend might consider forgetting about schemes that avoid the soil and use the good earth to grow her food. Raised beds can be constructed as simply as digging the soil out of the paths and piling it on top of the growing beds.

Use whatever organic material she can collect as mulch around the plants to keep the weeds down and the soil moist and let the plants grow in the fertile soil instead of trying to artificially create what is right there under her feet.

I generally double dig all my garden beds though this year I used a small tiller to chop the sod layer since I was starting a new garden at my new home. Much too large to double dig in one season and I needed to get it going fast. I built the beds as I suggested above, simply mounded them with soil from the paths and planted as soon as they were ready. Started applying the mulch as fast as I could gather it. Chopped leaves from the woodland and grass clippings. I'm slowly mulching all the paths now with woodchips.

I could never have started a garden this size if I had to have all the organic matter on hand that the lasagna scheme requires before I could begin. A better use for it in my mind is tom use it to mulch your soil beds.

I may never use the little Mantis tiller I bought on the beds again as I start the process of double-digging them, but it was essential to getting the garden started. (Though I could have cashed in the IRA and waited a couple of years for the straw to decompose.)

Started the garden on April 16th, as soon as enough snow melted that I could start on a small part. (Sandy soil and no frost due to the huge amount of snowcover meant I could follow the receding snowline with the tiller a day or two later.) I'm harvesting a huge crop of broccoli now, as well as cukes and the last of the early snap peas. I'm pretty happy so far with the results for Year 1 in the new garden.

Wayne

I extended my garden bed last year. Just wanted to note that 4/5 pages of wet newspaper topped with 8in of shredded leaves added Oct thru Dec totally killed the grass. (wet the leaves down too) This spring the soil was crumbly and wonderful. And I had the wonderful leaf-mold to use as a mulch around my plants. My garden is in one of the few places in my yard that is not heavy clay.

oops meant to add....call around to local schools/churches after the Halloween and Thanksgiving season. They use straw/hay bales in decorations etc. They'll give it away if you haul it. Might get a few sad looking pumpkins for your compost too!

If newspapers, or cardboard, were layed down now and, of course covered with another mulch, there still should be ample time to plant and grow a winter cover crop, if that would be needed. The purpose of a cover crop is to provide a cover so your soil is not left bare and exposed to the ravages of the winter winds. Covering that soil with a good mulch does the same thing, so both practices are not necessary, although you could do both if you want to.

Since newspaper and cardboard can be obtained for nothing if one has the means to haul them, they are a great way to smother sod. I agree with the cost of hay or straw on a large scale - it doesn't pay. And I agree with Wayne, once the sod is dealt with the native soil is likely plenty good enough to simply proceed with cover-cropping and gardening.

1000 SF is approx 20 x 50 feet, that is not so big that she couldn't use a "lasagne scheme" as Adirondackgardener calls it!

I am using lasagne techniques all over the back yard. I find it is simply the easiest (albeit slowest) way to create new beds without tilling, weeding, etc. especially when you are starting with overgrown areas that are infested with invasive plants and weeds. Not to mention the seed bank that has accumulated!

I start with a weedy overgrown mess and lots of Vinca minor, then I dig up and cut the small trees and shrubbery, and then smother with a couple layers cardboard or other paper. Then pile on coffee grounds, compost, leaves, straw, garden refuse, etc. I do not buy ANY of this, it is all collected from local sources. Sometimes I mow the weeds and Vinca down real low first, sometimes not.

In the way back, where it's totally gone wild, I want to make some gardens of native wildflowers and grasses. That is VERY weedy - with some terrible intractible invasives like Buckthorn and Oriental Bittersweet. I am using bags of grass clippings picked up at the town compost center. I open up the bags and lay them down flat, then spread about 2 inches of grass clippings on top. The grass clippings are so dense they kind of congeal and make an impenetrable layer. This is an experiment so I don't know how well this will kill the weeds yet!d Well see.

Optimally, I wait about 1 year before planting in lasagne, but they can be dug up a little and planted before that. Things are growing so well in the lasagne beds, it has exceeded my expectations.

Thanks everyone, for the thoughtful replies. I'll tell her all this, and let her decide. Her english isn't that great, that's why I"m asking for her. She'll have to weigh cost concerns (here straw goes for $7 at one place, and - are you ready -- $14!!! a bale at another!) vs. manual labor, since her husband has a really bad back. The year we moved in we took down some dying ash trees and small scrubby cedars, hand dug about 1000 SF by hand, tugging out huge roots and rocks as we went. We managed to plant the whole thing that year, with a one year old. She's 17 now, and we've expanded the garden since, but always the hard way. That's why I'm intrigued by this passive way of killing off the grass.

Thanks again!

Oh, another technique you could consider is laying down large sheets of plastic and "solarizing" the area, as long as it gets at least 4 hours of strong sunlight per day. Apparently you can use either black or clear plastic.

I tried this as an experiment in the back wild area. There was a lot of of clear plastic leftover from an insulation job, and I laid down a piece about 15 x 20 feet. Left it there for about 4 weeks. It worked very well, almost all the weeds were killed. The downside was that the plastic would collect rainwater, and I was afraid it would hatch mosquitoes. So when the area was fried, I removed the plastic and laid down a couple inches of grass clippings over it.

Here's a link -

Here is a link that might be useful: Solarizing

I would never recommend solarizing for killing weeds when a simple mulch, even a couple of layers of nespaper and some chopped leaves on top will do the trick. Or even hand weeding.

Solarizing will kill the soil microbes that you will depend on. Use it only when your soil is plagued by pathogens. It is like radiation treatment for cancer in that is non-selective. As radiation kills off good cells and bad, solarization kills off all life in the top, active layers of your soil.

Use mulch or hand labor instead.

Wayne

confused about "solarizing". The area under a large conifer tree was almost totally weeds. (talking about a 20' circumference around base of tree) I wanted them gone to either plant grass or maybe a pumpkin patch. (plenty of sun) I hauled in free pine needles for smothering but, I knew that the weeds would grew though if it wasn't thick enough. So, I laid down some old sheets I had and then put the pine needles on top. This fall I'd planned to remove the sheets and leave just the needles. Plan was to plant next spring. Was this the wrong way to go about it?

Soil solarization is an over rated means of fixing a sick soil, and "weeds" do not necessarily indicate a sick soil. In places such as Georgia and California the soil needs to be covered and out of service for at least 2 months, 8 weeks, although some people that know nothing about this will tell you less time is okay, but the soil temperature needs to get quite hot, for quite some time to be effective and that means lots of sun for a long time.
Sudzy, it would have been better for you to have used paper so you would not need to remove it in the fall.

thanks KImmsr. As long as I didn't do damage to the soil. I KNOW ,( sigh), that the sheets were a bad idea. It was a matter of using what was available at the time. A daily newspaper is a luxury where I live. :)