Reclaiming an overgrown garden...

[Stick in Mud]

Between getting married, going on a honeymoon, taking five canoe trips, traveling for work, and a quickly developing lazy disposition, the garden in the backyard became more or less a complete loss last summer.  I just ended up mowing it down to prevent the neighbors from complaining too much about it.  We did salvage some greens, a few onions, and some rhubarb, but other than that, it was a mess.

We'd like to get it back in shape this summer, but it looks more like our lawn than a garden.  What's the best way to get rid of all the bad stuff? 

[nofishfisherman]

When I moved into my house the old garden area had pretty much been taken over by the lawn, and by lawn I mean the weedy/grassy mix that was being called a lawn by the previous home owners.

All I did was grab a shovel and turn over the dirt and break it up.  It was a smaller garden bed so a shovel worked but a tiller would be ideal for a bigger space.  While breaking it up i pulled out as much of the bad stuff along with the roots as I could and just left the rest.  If you have a lot of bigger vegetation I'd probably pull everything you can and just start over with a blank slate. Once that was done I brought in a bunch of compost.  Figure out what you think you'll need and then add 50% then you might be close. If its heavier soil I would also bring in some peat moss to help loosen the soil.  Where ever you plan to plant carrots, potatoes, or other root crops make sure to concentrate the peat in those areas so you give the root crops the best chance to grow bigger.

I mixed in the compost as much as possible and as deep as possible. After that the soil was in pretty good shape and we've had a great garden ever since.  i did add alot of compost the first couple years after at the start of each season but not as much any more.  You may find some carryover weeds that you can pick as they pop up.  Its just a matter of staying on top of it.  One way I've kept my garden maintenance to a minimum is to collect my grass clippings and spread them over the soil.  The grass clippings do a couple things.  1 its a mulch to help hold moisture, 2 it smothers weeds and prevents them from growing, and 3 at the end of the season you mix them into the soil and let it compost. 

[delcecchi]

Cove it with black plastic or thick layer of newspaper to kill what is there.  Roundup is another possible solution. Get the weeds out first.

[Tom Sawyer]

It depends on how much work you want to put into Carl. If it isn't that big of an area, I would spade it. If it was full of weeds, definitely avoid just tilling; you will be just planting millions of weed seeds. delcechi's idea of plastic or roundup is fine, if you have time for it to do the job. I spade my vegetable garden each year to not only loosen up the soil, but to also incorporate fall leaves, last years grass clippings (used as nofishfisherman), and plant matter to help build organic matter. 

[Bobby Bass]

For thirty years I tilled gardens as a part time business, ( earned my fishing money) I have done hundreds of gardens and have started new ones countless times. Prep is the key word here with a new garden or bring back an old one. Now you say you have grass growing there are two ways I recommend in restoring it to a garden. If is grass that is passing as a bad lawn I would rent a sod cutter and cut out a new garden, remove the sod to fill low places in your yard or stick in a corner and start your compost pile with it. This of course depends on the size of your garden. Any thing over a 15x15 I would just use a sod cutter. Once the sod is removed you can then deep till with a REAR tine tiller add soil or sand, what ever you think you need.

2nd method is to use a tank sprayer and spray the garden down with a total vegetation killer and let sit for a few days. Do not mow as the killer needs to be absorbed into the weeds/grass. After a few days take a weed wacker and remove all dead grass and weeds to bare ground. Rake and remove. Now till at about 6 inches entire garden making sure you also do it North to S then E to W. Now the bad part. You need to go back and rake up all the clods of dirt and roots. When this is done you can now deep till and add soil.

Almost all the gardens over 15x15 I would use a sod cutter and till method. Either way when you are done you will have a good start on a new garden. Don’t do this when the ground is real wet as you will have more clods to pick out if you do method 2

Another solution is it would be a great time to start raise bed gardening or a gutter growing garden.

Edited March 9, 2016 by Bobby Bass

[delcecchi]

Or the straw bale system....

My problem was quack grass, and tilling/spading etc does nothing to even slow it down.    I don't know about the sod cutting...

[Stick in Mud]

Thanks for the advice, guys.  It's, oh, 8 x 16, give or take a foot.  I can borrow a friend's tiller if that's the best way.  It's what I did last year, and it worked fine until I didn't touch the garden for a month or three.

10 hours ago, delcecchi said:

Cove it with black plastic or thick layer of newspaper to kill what is there.  Roundup is another possible solution. Get the weeds out first.

My neighbor suggested the "cover with plastic" method (she called it "solarization" and suggested clear plastic, for what it's worth).  That seems the easiest, and I wasn't kidding about my increasingly lazy disposition.   Is there enough sunlight/heat this time of year to kill stuff underneath?  And if I go with a weed killer, how long before planting should I apply it?

Thanks again for all the tips, by the way.  I'm not blessed with a green thumb.

[Dotch]

Is your neighbor good looking and does she smell good?  

Always more than one way to skin a cat. I tend to lean towards what Im most familiar with and what time allows. It's a small enough area so you can't go wrong. Plastic works and is easy on a small scale with no fancy equipment required. As warm as it's been it should up and take out weeds decently. Not experienced with it however. 

As far as weed killer, assuming you're talking glyphosate (Round Up) to burn it down. May be a while as the weeds need to be actively growing before it does any good. Just to be on the safe side though, a week ahead of planting is not a bad rule of thumb. It allows the product to translocate into perennials so they should be dead if you decide to till the area. If the soil is extremely sandy with very low organic matter, I have heard some anecdotal evidence where some have complained of issues with the product causing injury on emerging plants. Not sure how much they might've put on but it must've been a wad and wondering if they waited until after planting if that was the case.   

[pushbutton]

Just train Ollie to pee there....and he will knock out those weeds for you no problem.....organic weed killer.

Am an exceptionally lazy gardner and never till, even when opening up new ground. Think there are some studies showing how it disrupts the natural biome with all the nematodes, bugs, natural anti fungals, nutrient and moisture delivery blah blah blah, but not why i don't ...... lazy.....shovels and sod kickers are no fun. I try to grow as much as possible under mulch, kind of like strawbale gardening, sometimes will use landscape fabric though. Stop by sometime to see a lazy gardener reclamation gig.

[Stick in Mud]

10 hours ago, pushbutton said:

Just train Ollie to pee there....and he will knock out those weeds for you no problem.....organic weed killer.

You know, that's not a bad idea.  If I move some of the saplings inside of the garden, he'll head for it every time. 

I might stop by, if only to finish off that bottle of whiskey I brought over two years ago.  Plus, it's almost morel season, and I hear rumors you grow a few out by your place.

 

[Grainbelt]

19 hours ago, Stick in Mud said:

My neighbor suggested the "cover with plastic" method (she called it "solarization" and suggested clear plastic, for what it's worth).

The reason for clear plastic is for UV penetration to heat the ground.

[delcecchi]

I would want black plastic to heat up as well as kill by lack of light

[roony]

My problem with using plastic is you absolutely smoke all the beneficial microorganisms in the soil. FWIW

[Tom7227]

I guess the one thing that hasn't been mentioned is to have a soil test done.  You can get it done through the U Extension office for about $15 or so.  There probably are other ways/places.  It gives you a real good idea on what sort of shape your soil is in and if you spend some time doing a bit of research you can learn what you may want to do to improve it.  You will learn if you have sandy soil and need to add organic material, whether it is low or high in a particular mineral.  Things like that.

Give some thought to not gassing any perennial plants you have.  I think you mentioned rhubarb and there is no reason to destroy it.

[delcecchi]

2 hours ago, roony said:

My problem with using plastic is you absolutely smoke all the beneficial microorganisms in the soil. FWIW

Why does depriving the soil of light kill the micro organisms?  Does the heat get that high and penetrate that deep?

[roony]

I think it's the heat mainly.

[delcecchi]

1 hour ago, roony said:

I think it's the heat mainly.

I am skeptical but really don't know. 

[roony]

The  main advantage I can see of using plastic mulch is the labor savings, controlling weeds without hand weeding or using chemical sprays. The early warming of the soil can also be beneficial. However, if the plastic is kept in place through the hotter part of the growing season it will definitely kill beneficial microorganisms in the soil both through excess heat and lack of air flow. In my opinion,  the use of plastic year after year will have an adverse affect on soil health. 

Edited March 12, 2016 by roony

[delcecchi]

I was referring more to using the plastic to cover the whole plot to kill the vegetation before tilling and planting an overgrown area.  Plastic mulch during the season is different, although I have pulled some up and there were worm tunnels right under it.  But it wasn't constantly in direct sun. 

[Stick in Mud]

For $15, I might send in some soil just to see what we have.   The dirt definitely grows some impressive weeds, though.

As far as I understand it, I'd use the plastic only to kill what's currently there...then I'd have to do a better job this summer of keeping up with regular maintenance, weeding, etc.  That's the plan, anyways. I'm just stuck with a garden that's closer to a lawn, and I'm not sure how to best get it back to plain ol' dirt.

I'll get the tiller out this week, get it tilled up, I'll do my best to get all the remaining weed clumps/roots/etc. out, and then I'll toss some plastic on it for a while. If that doesn't work, then...we'll see.

[Juneau4]

Don't know what your going to plant for a garden, but I do know grass clippings a couple inches thick prevents weeds from growing and all you have to do is till it in after the garden is done. Just don't use  clippings that have weed spray on. You can even put newspaper under it if you want. Do this mid June and later so the ground is well warmed and plants are established.

[Early Riser]

You might want to consider building some raised beds with lumber. If you can stretch the space a little bit, which would be easy to do with this method, so you could utilize four 4'X8' boxes. This would give you quite a bit of growing area without ever needing to till. Keeping them within 4' wide allows you to access the whole bed without ever stepping in your growing area. Check out "square foot gardening method" for more information. 

I took over a space of established lawn by simply placing single sheets of cardboard over the lawn under the boxes . Then I wet down the cardboard and filled the boxes with a pickup load each of free finished compost from the yard waste recycling center in Maple Grove. I suppose you could check for a similar free resource in your area, or pay for it through a local green house. Fully finished compost is typically about $20 a yard to have loaded in a pickup whit a skid steer. 

Another advantage to this option is that you can keep your lawn right up the edge of the boxes and just mow around them. In the main garden where I used to till, I simply mulch the rows between beds with leaves and grass clippings. 

Through the growing season I mulch around plants with my own finished composted leaves, kitchen scraps and grass clippings. In the fall I cover each bed with a thick mat of leaves. This covering can be pulled aside for started plants, or removed into the your paths when you sow seeds. The amount of earth worms in these beds is incredible and soil is so soft I can stick my hand into it without any problem, which is huge improvement over the native clay soil here. 

I build my boxes with 2X8" non-treated lumber. I also add a 2X4" cap around the top for walking or sitting while working in the beds. You can use pressure treated lumber now that it is non-toxic, but I haven't seen much of a need as I have some boxes that are pushing 10 years old and still doing their job. Once they fully decompose and go back into the soil, I will still have a well established, weed free bed in their place. 

Here are few examples:

[delcecchi]

Bunnies and Bambies are another problem I had.  Quack on the inside, varmints on the outside... Nice fence.  

[smurfy]

del, in town I don't have deer issues but them dang nabit bunnies!!!!!!!!!!! what really works good is go get some fox urine and spray it around on  the ground............instant exit...........stage right!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[roony]

Is it hard to get the fox to pea in that bottle?