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Garden Experiments

best way to dig up old sod?

daisyadayinoregon

21 years ago

I'm trying to add a flower bed and dry river bed to an area that is now covered with unhealthy sod. I don't want to cover it and work on top of the grass because it will make the area too high and will cause probs with runoff onto the sidewalk & driveway. I guess I need to peel up the sod if that is possible. Any ideas??? Thanks tons. Kim

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Comments (9)

Okanagan
21 years ago
I've done quite a bit of this with a good shovel. Peel the sod onto a tarp and drag it away. Easier than lift into barrow. Best after a day of rain. THat's my hard-workin' amateur answer.
daisyadayinoregon
Original Author
21 years ago
Thanks! So what do you use to peel up the sod? A shovel or hoe? I'm truly clueless. Is it really hard to do?
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I would never go through that much work of digging out sod. I would go with kimmsr's suggestion of covering with newspaper or cardboard and then some kind of mulch, chopped leaves, straw, hay, horse stall cleanings, coffee grounds from starbucks, all of the above is really good. Yes putting black plastic out will kill off the sod, will also in time kill off your soil. Next spring you will have a nice planting area. As you plant when you find rocks you can remove them. Other than that I would not worry about the rocks. Trust me it won't take for ever to kill the sod. If you so wish to get the good workout and pull up the sod then yes chop it up into smaller chunks, add to a mix of other compost materials(the sod is a green). The more you mix it over this winter/spring the quicker it will compost. You can also pull it up, pull out the rocks you want to pull out, turn the sod upside down then pile the above suggestions onto the bed. Again by spring you will have a great planting area. I have spent the day today laying out another layer of cardboard with leaves ontop of the cardboard and now this week I will do a couple runs to the horse farm for stall waste. I will lay that ontop of the leaves/cardboard and by next spring it will be a very rich area waiting for planting. Sandy
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Oh dear! I just planted a holly TREE (female) away from the house far enough that I can see it from the deck. I love the look of a nice holly TREE. In the French Quarter of New Orleans, that is the tree planted along the streets in those small planting pockets, they look great, they grow straight, they keep their leaves all year, and they are hard to kill....sounds good to me. BUT, at the house we had on the river (destroyed by Katrina), there were holly shrubs with trunks about 5" diameter, kept the size of the large camellias also planted near the house. All of these survived the salty flood waters without a stutter. They are still on the vacant lot, and far be it from me to try to dig them up. :) All your experiences remind me of the agony we are going through trying to rid ourselves of some darned CAMPHOR TREES. Those roots WILL come back. Each seed eaten by a bird will be pooped into the lawn somewhere, and I make sure I pull up seedlings before we cut the grass each week. One camphor tree we had to use the car to extract the root. We used a chain attached to the trailer hitch. As a boat captain, I can tell you DO NOT GET IN THE PATH OF A LINE UNDER TENSION...especially if it is NYLON. Like a bullwhip, they can come back on you and remove an arm or eye or (as happened to a man offshore) a head. It is very dangerous to keep increasing tension on a line. So just apply SO MUCH, and stay off to one side neither in front of nor behind the direction of pull. A well sharpened pickax (adz if you are from the nawth) can eat through a lot of wood.
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jimax1920
21 years ago
Get an edging shovel. It is a flat shovel and a good tool man at Lowes or any good hardware store will know what it is. Have the blade sharpened where it will slide under the sod and lift it. But first take the shovel and cut the sod into squares and then lift it right up with the shovel.
alpiner
21 years ago
Use a pick and shovel. I've made dozens of garden beds from lawns. Cut the sod with a regular long-handled pointed shovel in rows and pull up the sod with the broad side of a pick-ax. A rounded shovel cuts into the sod way easier than a flat ended one. This takes a tenth of the time and energy of using a spade, sod cutter, etc.
lakertaker1
20 years ago
hi daisy
dig and turn over the sod. it makes good humus, the odd clumps that grow just pick out.
sjmartin43
20 years ago
If it's a large area rent a sod cutter at a rental shop or a box store. It takes 1/10th the time and energy and you'll have that garden done in no time.
Farmer_Duncan
20 years ago
The easiest way I have found is to till the top couple of inches then just rake it up.
gottagarden
20 years ago
Rent a sod cutter! AFter two hours of digging I was so discouraged at how little I had accomplished. SOd cutter was like magic, super fast and easy to use. Worth every penny to rent!
Had tried to rototill, but sod was too hard and too much work.l
ludmilla
20 years ago
All of these ideas sound useful.
I dug up the front lawn this year the hard way , that is I cut squares out of the sod ( beig careful not to damage the Silver Maple roots running through it) then sat around shaking the soil out depositing the remaining tufts into the municipal bin ( no room to store).
Apart from getting to enjoy being outside for 3 consecutive weekends from dawn 'til dusk I met all the neighbours as they walked by in disbelief

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