Congrats on the new garden. My main offering is not to obsess too much over the amendments, preparation, etc. You are highly unlikely to 'screw up' your soil except by adding too much stuff to it.(Except compost, of course). Remember, your forebears used the earth they had and somehow managed to feed themselves. Do what you can, try stuff out and don't get put off by all the talk of what you MUST do. Get some seeds in and get started. Above all don't worry. That defeats one of the main purposes of gardening! My only other advice would be to keep on top of the weeds. Weeding is a constant process, not a once and for all thing. Hoe off seedlings regularly and pull anything larger BEFORE they get to be a problem. Weed continuously. Every time you go near the garden pull any weeds you see. Sounds like hard work but believe me it is a lot easier than trying to get rid of a weed forest later. After a while the seed bank will be depleted and you will find yourself searching for weeds to pull. All the weeds except perennial roots like bindweed can go onto your new compost heap. Which you will be starting immediately won't you? ;-) And by all means have a look at the compost forum but don't be scared off by the compost pros. They are well meaning but a bit fixated. A pile of garden and kitchen junk will turn into compost whatever you do to it. Enjoy your garden - relax - don't let it become a chore.

mitanoff: Where my existing soil is okay, I sometimes just use cardboard to kill the grass, coffee grounds to attract earthworms & any lawn clippings and/or leaves I might have on hand, before covering it all with mulch (optional) and waiting for the grass to die. With enough moisture & time, the cardboard will decompose and then you can dig & plant. If your soil is poor or rocky, the higher you build your lasagna layers the better, allowing you to plant without having to dig into the original soil. Twelve inches could easily compress to only a couple of inches by spring. This time of year you should be able to find lots of leaves to use as browns. Alfalfa pellets from a feed store can be used as a green, if you don't have access to other greens. I'm not familiar with triple mix, so can't comment on that. Suzanne: If you aren't going to plant anything immediately (Some lasagna gardeners do), using your slightly aged manure should be okay. I would think you could continue adding stuff as you want, keeping in mind that it does take time for things to breakdown. This is a very forgiving process. As long as everything you use is compostable, it will break down given enough time.

Sorry Mr Hall, didn't mean to step on your toes. Just thought it was important to let the OP know a cool season grass is probable not the right choice for their area. I do agree dump the Rye idea all together. For now it was the right choice to get some ground cover through the winter. Op you really have two choices; * Expensive, quick, weed-free as possible, and the best overall solution. *Inexpensive solution. The best solution is to use a Bermuda or Zoysia sod. You can do it now or later. However for that much area you are talking real big 4-digit numbers. The inexpensive solution requires putting up with weeds until 2009 season by using seed, and you have to wait until late May or early June to seed. You will have to do something because all that Rye you planted will be toast by June/July leaving you with nothing but weeds-n-dust when it dies off from the heat and dry conditions. Either way, sod or seed, you have to figure out irrigation. For an area that big you really need a built in irrigation system to even have a chance of watering an area that big, especially if seeding. Another option for you may be Buffalo grass if you do not mind a lower quality turf. You still have a water issue to get it started from seed, but once established all you have to do is mow it, and feed it once a year.

Hi, I recently moved from San Jose to Merced and faced a similar "problem." I wanted to build raised beds over lawn using the lasagna garden method. But since time was short, rather than waiting for the usual lasagna garden ingredients to breakdown into compost, I figured I could save time by just starting out with straight compost (which, I should add, is somewhat controversial here). I laid wet cardboard over the lawn, built my raised beds, and filled them with 100% green-waste compost from the Merced County landfill. I ended up going through some anxious moments regarding the quality of the compost (see my thread a few pages back on "soil test results"), but was eventually satisfied that everything was AOK and went ahead with transplanting things into the compost. So far so good! I paid $10/cu yd for the compost (plus labor costs for someone to go pick it up for me and put it into the beds), but I understand that it's free in some areas. I had an organic amendment analysis done by a lab (it's not considered soil, so they don't do a standard soil test), and was comfortable with using the compost for veggies after talking with the lab. I've got quite a few raised beds going now, at minimal cost and in a short time frame. Time will tell how it all works out. If you decide to go this route, I'd recommend a soil test or an organic amendment test on the county compost to make sure you're comfortable in using it. I consider this first year of gardens a bit experimental, so can't totally recommend it or not. I was digging out (in our clay soil) around some sprinkler heads today in preparation for replacing them with drip irrigation fittings. I came across a number of worms, so I'm hopeful that by now, I've got worms starting to chomp on the cardboard beneath my raised beds and preparing the way for the roots of my transplants to venture down into the depths beneath the compost. (Most of my raised beds are just 6" high but I have a few at 2' deep). FWIW!