If I hadnвЂ™t rototilled, I would have to arrange for large cardboard piles and bringing them home in a car would be a difficult (my husbandвЂ™s office discards a lot of cardboard every week). The work of removing sod is still not done as weather here in west New Jersey became abruptly windy and cold. I spent around $150 on renting a rototiller for 2 days. My shoulders, wrists and other body parts were sore. The land was uneven and rototiller was hard to push. This week, me and husband, rototilled a large garden(around 5000 square feet) to remove sod and were sore from the hard work (another 6000 sq ft remains to be tilled). However, collecting huge cardboards in a house which is rented with limited space can be an issue. Hello Erica, I like your article and as a beginning gardener, I am definitely going to try this out. ItвЂ™s the natural, faster, easier way to make a garden, and it gives a better result. So save yourself some work and save your back from needless spasms вЂ“ stop ripping up your lawn and start smothering it. I intend to have them planted this summer. The best time to build up new beds (with rigid sides or without, as you prefer) is in the fall for planting next year, but a spring build can be done too.В IвЂ™m currently building up three half-ass hugelkultur / lasagna gardening beds and will be posting soon about the process of creating them right over my lawn.

IвЂ™ve never had lawn survive and grow through 10 to 12 inches of piled on compost, mixed mulch or other organic matter, but if you want to be extra sure your grass is well and trulyВ smotheredВ so it can begin to decompose into wonderful rich topsoil, lay down some plain cardboard over the grass before piling on your organic matter. All these techniques can be implemented right on top of an existing lawn, to the betterment of the soil and the growing space. These are all slightly different variations on building a raised growing space from layers of organic matter that rots down right where it is, getting better and better as it composts in place.

YouвЂ™ve probably heard of sheet composting, lasagna gardening, grow heaps or hugelkultur. In doing so, youвЂ™ll beВ mimickingВ the best soil-building actions of nature and starting to turn your own little urban grassland into a teeny Mollisols which you can build on year after year, just as nativeВ prairiesВ build their soil up year after year. Go ahead and put in a garden, but donвЂ™t rip up the lawn. I think you know where IвЂ™m going with this, right? Lots of organic matter on top of grassвЂ¦ And you were thinking youвЂ™d have to rip up the grass before you put in a garden? The best soil in the world is the result of gradual accumulation of lots of organic matter on top of grass. So the best soil in the world is created when grasses and grassroots are smothered in place by more grasses and grass roots. Ponder too long on this and you might start crying, so letвЂ™s get back to your lawn. (Yes, the best soil in the world, and it literally turned to dust before our eyes.) Today, of course,В massive amounts of supplemental fertilization keeps these soy, wheat and corn growing areas commercially viable. In some places over 75% of the deep topsoil simply blew away. The soil is Mollisols, a just-add-water dream to grow in.Дecades of unsustainable farming practices on this prairie land combined with a long, hard drought led to the Dust Bowl disaster of the 1930s. This is why Great Plains agricultural areas вЂ“ before large-scale destruction of top-soil anchoring prairies through deep ploughing and hedgerow-to-hedgerow mono-cropping вЂ“ were some of the most fertile growing spots in the world. Basically, the diverse grassland prairie grasses die back, thatch down,В occasionallyВ burn, and the masses of dead grass and dead grass roots decompose into the best soil in the world. The most fertile kinds of Mollisols build up over eons from layer upon layer of decomposed grasses.

Mollisols typically occur under grasslands, such as the Great Plains of the United States. Well, Mollisols werenвЂ™t born super-soils, they became super-soils. What does any of this have to do with your lawn? As you would expect, Mollisols are, вЂњthe worldвЂ™s most agriculturally productive soil order represent one of the more economically important soil orders.вЂќ ( Wikipedia) (Image: Wikipedia/Creative Commons)ДЄny gardener will tell you that two feet or more of soft, super-rich, high-organic matter soil sounds like a growers heaven.

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