remove grass beneath raised bed?

15 years ago

I'm getting a late start on my long-planned raised bed. In order to plant this year, do I need to remove the grass underneath the bed? I will use 8 or 10" boards.

I have considered renting a sod cutter and removing not only the sod under the bed area but around it and putting chips down for paths.

But if I don't get that ambitious, am I doomed to an eternity of grass growing up into my bed? I know I should have started last year with newspaper or cardboard over the grass but alas, it didn't get done. Thanks in advance for any advice.

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scarleta

15 years ago

I had my garden re done and veggie beds raised several yours ago.This is what professionals did exactly as nicely said in this post, so I will paste it:
"Cardboard and or newspaper is a good idea to smoother the grass. If you do cut the sod with a sod cutter you could turn the cut sod upside down so that the grass side is in the dirt and the dirt side is up"
That made sense to me too, so here is what I had to learn the hard way.
I had no veggies for couple of years following that makeover.I had to find out what was eating and killing all my newly planted veggies ?The beds were totally infested with wire worms.When I took a shovel full of soil to garden masters to help me diagnose they were under impression that it took me several hours to collect that many healthy and shiny as they said wire worms.After I explained that I just took a shovel and that is what I came up with.They were shocked and said that the best way to deal with this problem was to remove all soil and start new.I have raised beds and it would have been a huge not to mention expensive project.So I have taken lots of time to learn all about them and how to get rid of them.Took at least 2 to 3 years to get rid of them totally.Wire worms live undisturbed under your lawn not too deeply.They do not travel horizontally so they won't cross to your veggie path even if its next to it.As you disturb "their home"they will come up to surface no matter how high you cover it.They want to live.Since you will have newly planted plants they will eat them or make tunnels in your veggies that nothing will be left for you.So if I were to do it again I would not even consider putting this in the bottom of my compost.I hope it helps you as they are not easy to deal with and they multiply really fast.Good luck to you.

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Comments (8)

earthworm73
15 years ago
Cardboard and or newspaper is a good idea to smoother the grass. If you do cut the sod with a sod cutter you could turn the cut sod upside down so that the grass side is in the dirt and the dirt side is up. Then you could cover the area with wet newspaper/cardboard. It is not too late.
Embothrium
15 years ago
Turn the sod over and stack it so most of the grass leaves are buried. Skip the paper products.
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sophigirl Yep, you can put down the cardboard, newspaper, soil, and other goodies in your beds and the plants will grow. In your shoes, since it's brand-new beds, I think I'd want them down as soon as possible. Though you can plant everything whenever you get the beds laid out, I think you'd feel more secure if you can get them laid out now and then plant a week or two later. It gives things time to settle, particularly if you're unable to shave off the sod some way. One guy on the internet showed how he removed the sod, turned it upside down so the roots were up, then put down the cardboard, newspaper, and soil for his raised beds. It was a matter of mixing "browns and greens" for fast decomposition of the sod and encouragement of earthworms, who apparently love the glue in corrugated cardboard.
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Newspaper works well. Use about 4 sheets of it and make sure the edges overlap. Wet it down, and put mulch on top of it. It will last for about a year and eventually degrade. If you need to plant anything else in the bed just dig a hole through the newspaper and redo the newspaper around it when you're done. I do this for my rose beds because I'm a horribly lazy gardener. In fact, I usually dig a hole in the grass, plant my rose, and newspaper around it. I still get some grass coming up but it's not that bad and I can just pull it. There's a spray called Grass be Gone by Ortho that is safe to use around roses, but it didn't work too well for me when I tried it last year. I'm trying it again this year but I haven't had a chance to use it yet.
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Another suggestion. This will cause a delay of a year, but... Kimmsr is right - it takes at least THREE shots of glyphosate to kill Bermuda in the area you want to replant. Another option, if you are willing to wait, is to overlay the area NOW with a double layer of black plastic, weight it down thoruoughly around the periphery and down the center, and wait a year. The Bermuda underneath will emerge and slowly die under the lack of light and the heat produced by the plastic. It needs to go a couple of feet beyond the edge of the future raised bed to kill the Bermuda far enough away that it will not immediately re-invade. When you build the raised bed, use a DOUBLE layer of geo-textile fabric ("weed barrier") lapping up the inside of the raised bed to the top. This will cause most of any invading Bermuda to emerge on the outside edge of the raised bed where it can be dealt with. The double layer is necessary because Bermuda can zip right through a single. That is the best protection you can apply non-chemically against Bermuda without using glyphosate.
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Thank you very much for the information David, but a couple of things aren't clear to me. You wrote, "In the end the 2,4,5 T or 2,4, D are NOT anywhere near as dangerous as the DIOXIN by-product created from making these 'weed-killers'." Well, at least that's good to know. "It" was stopped being made years ago." What 'it' was stopped -- the manufacture of glyphosate? "But by law the stuff made still can be sold until the supply is exhausted." Do you mean the supply of Roundup's active ingredient, glyphosate, will not be made when the supply that was made years ago is exhausted? "The PAN reference I was looking the other day says Scotts stopped in 1996. To still 14 years later have product seems unbelievable so I need to figure out how long ago Ortho was bought out by Scotts because this part still doesn't make sense to me as yet." Does this mean that when the previously made supply of glyphosate runs out Roundup will no longer be available? And that presumably Scott bought up Ortho's supply? BTW, didn't Monsanto spend millions developing plants that were resistant to Roundup so the weeds could be sprayed without it affecting the food crop and called the seeds to those food crops 'Roundup ready'? Why would they do that if the manufacture of Roundup is to be discontinued? I just read this on Monsanto's site: "RoundupÂ® agricultural herbicides are the flagship of Monsanto's agricultural chemicals business. The properties of Roundup agricultural herbicides and other glyphosate products can be used as part of an environmentally responsible weed control program and fit with the vision of sustainable agriculture and environmental" Sorry to be so dense but I really don't understand all this. I didn't even know that Grass b Gone was related to Round Up. I'm not educated in chemistry and thought that the 2,4, numbers, etc. just referred to where molecules attached to one another and not were not necessarily referring to molecules that were related to one another. In other words I thought fluazifop (Grass B Gone) was unrelated to glyphosate (Roundup). But if they are closely related it seems that Roundup would be pulled as well as Grass B Gone. So if anyone can clarify some of this I'd appreciate it. Thanks in advance.
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dottyinduncan
15 years ago
Check out the soil, mulch and compost forum here on G/W. It's a super forum with lots of info about starting raised beds. Like here, you'll get lots of opinions -- they admit to being compost wackos but I've sure learned a lot there. And, I used cardboard under one of my beds then added about 20 inches of leaf mulch, grass clippings and manure. It smothered the nasty weeds that I had been fighting for years and the cardboard disappears after a while.
hallerlake
15 years ago
If you're putting eight or ten inches of soil in those raised beds, you should smother the grass without having to do anything else. Leave the grass. It will compost naturally over time.
everblooming
15 years ago
I have several raised beds and used the store bought weed barrier matting. That and the 12" of good garden soil killed all the grass. But, i DID turn over the garden paths between them, weed matted and did bark chips...what a mess! The grass crawled out around the edges of the paths and was a constant headache!
I tore out the paths, cut all the sod out, sprayed weed killer, THEN I did the weed matting and bark... a big job but no more grass growing up the sides of my beds!
hvaldez
15 years ago
I have several raised beds originally positioned over grass. However, this area was extremely ignored prior to the raised boxes. I just placed the boxed on top of the grass and filled them with rich compost and some topsoil. I figure the grass was killed and composted. I see a lot of worm action now that I did not before. I have not had problems with weeds. Every year I add fresh compost and/or chicken manure. My veggies have thrived. I do not add any amendments to the herb boxes which do quite well.
reg_pnw7
15 years ago
The grass will die by itself with that deep a bed, but you might want to put down a layer of hardware mesh to keep out burrowing animals like voles and rats. I had raised beds built for veggies but didn't put down any hardware mesh, and I never could get a crop from any root crops. Voles ran all through my raised beds.

remove grass beneath raised bed?

scarleta

Comments (8)

earthworm73

Embothrium

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