I think you have plenty of time to get the bed ready if you are willing to do some work and also carefully monitor after planting. If I was in your situation I would turn the soil and sod over with a shovel. I'd dig deeply trying to make sure most of the sod ends up buried. One way to do this is to dig a trench the width of the bed and place the soil to the side, making the trench at least 18 inches deep. Then you can turn the soil next to the trench over into the trench, making sure the sod on top ends up upside down in the bottom of the trench, and the soil from the below the sod ends up on top. This will, in effect, move the trench about a foot or so farther into the garden. It has to be done shovelful by shovelful and requires some work, but if you slice off managable sized vertical slices of sod and soil it isn't backbreaking. You can use the shovel and your weight to cut a slice of sod and soil off the edge of the trench, then flip it into the trench. You keep going this way, turning the soil into the trench, burying the sod, and moving the trench along through the bed, leaving behind freshly turned soil. Finally, you can take the original soil removed from the trench and use it to fill the trench, which will have mirated ot the far end of the bed. This is also an opportunity to incorporate organic material into the soil, which impproves any soil. I would normally recommend that you add 6 inches of organic matter such as compost on top of the sod before you turn the bed over, but in this case, since strawberryes are hard to remove weeds from, your first priority should be to make sure that all the sod gets buried. The presence of the compost (or manure, or leaf mold, or peat moss, etc.) can make it a little harder to see the sod, but if you think you are up to it, the organic matter will really help. Once the bed is turned over and you have picked out any bits of green grass you see sticking through, place a mulch over the entire surface. I like organic mulches like leaves, grass clippings, etc., but many people use black plastic or landscape cloth. In any case, you want a thick mulch that will prevent any weeds or grass from growing through. wait a few weeks to allow the grass below to die, and plant your strawberries. Monitor very carefully all summer to make sure no grass is permitted go grow between the strawberries. I would not recommend using a rototiller for this. A rototiller will mix the grass with the soil, leaving a lot of the grass on the soil surface where it will try to regrow. Also, I don't like tillers in general because they don't get deep enough an often leave a hardened layer just below the tilled soils, caused by the tines hitting the soil below. If you have the ability, nothing can beat tilling with a shovel (although it is a lot slower).

One of my zucchini plants did the same thing. I also just buried it. The plant has continued to thrive though. I've gotten 2 zucchinis from it so far and it is growing new leaves, flowers etc. very well. And the stem came unburied from all the rain we had. Just washed the soil right off. Based on previous experience - it is not squash vine boer. When that attacks you'll see a strange yellow-orange substance almost resembling sawdust close to where they are feasting on the plant. And the plant leaves will start visibly wilting and dying off. All is not lost though. Last year I was able to pull a 'bug' out of the stem and buried it as best I could. The plant went on for another month. But then I couldn't keep up with them. Be on the look-out for reddish, goldish shiney cluster of dots on the leaves. I was told that is there eggs. Clean them off and you'll be better off. I didn't have a problem until I missed cleaning off some of the eggs. So far no issues this year. Good Luck! Happy Growing!

MRJoss, Mine is doing something similar. I brought it home from Calloways about a month ago and left it in a similar light setting to what they had (low) to acclamate to the house. It started as a small brown spot that expanded quickly. The same thing is starting to happen to multiple leaves. I haven't overwatered it or fertilized it. It is very ugly now and too many leaves are effected to remove them and have a substantial plant left. I'm going to try to return it. This bottom of this article refers to the problem: http://www.ourhouseplants.com/plants/sansevieria . All of the other plants purchased at the time are doing great - multiple succulents and cactus, a dracaenas, a pothos, and several ferns.

I started out top watering but I was never sure how much to give and would sometimes see gnats which made me think I was overwatering. Gnats are a fair indication the upper portion of the grow medium is remaining too wet for too long. This can be due to the medium being overly water-retentive, the grower watering at intervals too short, or a combination of both. I will try watering and letting it drain as you suggested. How often would you recommend and should it just take a few seconds or so to completely soak the soil or should I be letting the water run through for longer? The ideal way to water is slowly, so you're evenly covering the entire top surface of the soil column. When water appears at the drain hole, stop watering and wait a few minutes (10 or so) and then add additional water. Ideally, at least 20% of the entire volume of water applied in both applications should exit the drain hole and not have a pathway back into the pot, which would be the undoing of the reason for watering to beyond the point of soil saturation. If you are still getting the sense the soil is holding too much water, the simple act of just tipping the pot to a 45* angle after watering will force additional water from the medium. A and B are the same pot, except that B has been tipped to a 45* angle. Notice the difference in how much less excess water B holds in comparison to A. This is a simple way of making a big difference in limiting the amount of excess water a planting can hold. For pots the size of which are easily managed, try taking advantage of Newton's First Law of Motion. Immediately after a thorough watering, hold the pot in one hand over the sink, lawn ..... and move it downward, then sharply reverse the direction to upward. You'll immediately note that a good measure of 'excess' water will “continue downward in a straight line” and exit the drain hole. The sharper the reversal of direction, the more water exits the drain hole. When you have repeated the exercise until water no longer exits the drain hole on the reversal of direction, you will have eliminated all excess water and your plants will regard you with a newfound sense of awe. To easily determine what watering intervals are, follow instructions (below) re making/ using a wooden tell. Proper watering is a critical aspect of any plant care regimen. Foliage-Pro 9-3-6 is a complete nutritional supplementation program from a single source. It is arguably the best 'go to' all purpose fertilizer product on the market for a variety of reasons. If you water as I mentioned and fertilize about every 3rd or 4th watering in the summer and about every 5th or 6th watering in winter, you should be fine. That will be on the low side, giving you room to increase the solution concentration if you think it's required. To keep track of when it's time to fertilize each plant, drop a marble or button in the pot whenever you water, that way you'll know what watering is 3rd, 4th, 5th, etc. When you fertilize pick up the objects and start over until it's time to fertilize again. Using a 'tell' Over-watering saps vitality and is one of the most common plant assassins, so learning to avoid it is worth the small effort. Plants make and store their own energy source – photosynthate - (sugar/glucose). Functioning roots need energy to drive their metabolic processes, and in order to get it, they use oxygen to burn (oxidize) their food. From this, we can see that terrestrial plants need plenty of air (oxygen) in the soil to drive root function. Many off-the-shelf soils hold too much water and not enough air to support the kind of root health most growers would like to see; and, a healthy root system is a prerequisite to a healthy plant. Watering in small sips leads to avoid over-watering leads to a residual build-up of dissolved solids (salts) in the soil from tapwater and fertilizer solutions, which limits a plant's ability to absorb water – so watering in sips simply moves us to the other horn of a dilemma. It creates another problem that requires resolution. Better, would be to simply adopt a soil that drains well enough to allow watering to beyond the saturation point, so we're flushing the soil of accumulating dissolved solids whenever we water; this, w/o the plant being forced to pay a tax in the form of reduced vitality, due to prolong periods of soil saturation. Sometimes, though, that's not a course we can immediately steer, which makes controlling how often we water a very important factor. In many cases, we can judge whether or not a planting needs watering by hefting the pot. This is especially true if the pot is made from light material, like plastic, but doesn't work (as) well when the pot is made from heavier material, like clay, or when the size/weight of the pot precludes grabbing it with one hand to judge its weight and gauge the need for water. Fingers stuck an inch or two into the soil work ok for shallow pots, but not for deep pots. Deep pots might have 3 or more inches of soil that feels totally dry, while the lower several inches of the soil is 100% saturated. Obviously, the lack of oxygen in the root zone situation can wreak havoc with root health and cause the loss of a very notable measure of your plant's potential. Inexpensive watering meters don't even measure moisture levels, they measure electrical conductivity. Clean the tip and insert it into a cup of distilled water and witness the fact it reads 'DRY'. One of the most reliable methods of checking a planting's need for water is using a 'tell'. You can use a bamboo skewer in a pinch, but a wooden dowel rod of about 5/16” (75-85mm) would work better. They usually come 48” (120cm) long and can usually be cut in half and serve as a pair. Sharpen all 4 ends in a pencil sharpener and slightly blunt the tip so it's about the diameter of the head on a straight pin. Push the wooden tell deep into the soil. Don't worry, it won't harm the root system. If the plant is quite root-bound, you might need to try several places until you find one where you can push it all the way to the pot's bottom. Leave it a few seconds, then withdraw it and inspect the tip for moisture. For most plantings, withhold water until the tell comes out dry or nearly so. If you see signs of wilting, adjust the interval between waterings so drought stress isn't a recurring issue. Questions? Al