Linda: I'm not sure I understand. Do you mean that grass and weeds are coming up in the area that you turned over? That would be largely because you unearthed deep seeds in the process, and some grass might have survived and grown through.

A lasagna garden would be much, much easier, and it works well. I have built a few lasagna gardens myself with great results.

If you search this forum for "lasagna gardening" you will get many hits and lots of information. Googling the phrase will give you other sources of information, too.

Karen

Hi Karen, yes, I took a small shovel and turned over all the grass in this one large area but the grass is still there, stuck to the dirt. I tried letting it dry out so that I could just shake the dirt off, or maybe strain it through a screen but as you said, the roots are pretty long and the grass doesn't seem to want to part with the grass.

I've been doing some reading and will also look up lasagna beds. I'm looking for an easy way of decomposing the grass or making a compost. I will do a search of the site, as you suggested.

Many thanks!
Linda

Linda: You could either compost the grass in a compost pile, or just let it stay there to rot and, essentially, compost in place. The grass is dead, right? As long as it's dead, just leaving it for the worms would be fine. If you don't like the looks of it, you could just mulch over it with any organic material (chipped wood, fall leaves, grass clippings) and it will rot there and feed the soil.

You are working way too hard though, turning over all that area. In lasagna gardening you just cover the lawn area with cardboard, build up layers of organic material, and you have an "instant" bed in no time. If you research it and give it a try I think you'll be quite happy with the method.

Karen

This is what I did to build an 8x40' bed on my front lawn without turning the grass over. Should work for you. Put the newspaper down (about 10 sheets thick) and a little mulch to hold it in place. When the leaves fall, pile them on thick on top. Then top it off with something somewhat pleasing to the eye (you'll have to stare at it all winter ;-))-compost, coffee grounds, more mulch, conifer boughs, anything to hold the leaves in place until spring. Maybe go a little thinner near the plantings you've already put in. Over the winter the grass will die and weed seeds won't sprout and by spring you'll be amazed by the amount of worms woking on your leaf mold. It worked for me. If you want to improve the soil even more, add more nitrogen to the mix (kitchen scraps, etc) and do the lasagna garden as kqcrna suggests.

tj

Cover the area with newspaper and cover the newspaper with a mulch to hold the newspaper in place and hide it. The newspaper keeps any plants growing under it from getting the sunlight plants need to grow so they will die and the soil bacteria will digest them putting the nutrients in the grass and "weeds" back into the soil to feed any plnats that grow there in the future. Keep in mind that the more sheets of paper layed down the harder it will be for the soil bacteria to digest so the longer that will take. Most of the time I have found that 4 to 6 sheets of paper are plenty. Soak the soil well before laying the paper down and the soil moisture will wet those papers, after the mulch is plunked down, so there is no need to try and handle wet paper which in my experience tends to fall apart too easily.
If you wnat to sheet compost over that bed, Lasagna Gardening is one name for doing that, that is always a good way to get more organic matter into the soil.

Here is a link that might be useful: Lasagna Gardening 101

The perinnials you planted thrive under almost any condidtions. They don't need a lot of nutrients. If it was me, I would just use some wood mulch.

I have a question about the lasagna bed. Does the bed eventually sink down to the same height as the area around it? It seems like the bed would be end up being raised and make watering harder if you didn't put sides on it.

I would never recommend just turning over sod and then planting. Turning over sod will not kill it (or 90% of it) and you will be fighting grass and other weeds in your planting beds indefinitely. IME the only way to be certain you have a grass-free planting area is to kill it off entirely or remove it. There are various methods of killing it off (best done before any planting), including chemical, but I wholeheartedly support suggestions for creating a lasagne bed or at the very least, smothering the grass with newspapers or cardboard covered with a mulch.

If it was me, I'd remove and temporarily store the plants already planted and clear the area thoroughly before replanting. Nothing is worse than trying to eliminate grass weeds growing through the roots and up into desired plants - it's never ending.