Watch our video on this process!
The problem with lawns
There are many reasons you may want to convert some of your lawn into gardening space. Perhaps you want to grow some food. Maybe you’d like to grow flowers instead of grass for your neighbors to look at as they walk by your boring lawn.
You could even be like me and believe that we should forever do away with lawns since they’re nothing but an exercise in conformity, quickly robbing water and other nutrient resources whilst providing virtually no benefit to anyone…sorry about that rant. I’m not the biggest fan of growing grass for grasses sake.
Now that you’ve decided you’d like some more gardening space, you’re faced with a decision. Rent a tiller OR start hacking away at your lawn with a shovel trying to loosen up the soil enough to plant into it? But what if there was another way?
The Solution to Lawns
Friends, I present to you the simplest method of lawn-to-garden conversion: cardboard and compost! (Plus a few other things but those are the basics).
There are really two methods that are very similar—one is slightly more costly than the other but both utilize the same basic framework. I will outline the “not-on-a-budget” option first.
Materials Needed
- Cardboard boxes or sheets (be sure to remove as much tape and stickers as possible from your boxes)
- Compost or well-rotted manure – enough to be able to lay down 6 inches deep where your garden bed will be. For example: 1 cubic yard of compost will cover 216 square feet of gardening space 6 inches deep.
- Mulch (e.g., wood chips, leaves, straw)
- Garden tools (e.g., shovel, rake, wheelbarrow)
Step 1: Prepare the Area
Remove any existing vegetation or debris from the area—specifically bulky rocks and sticks as these will get in the way of your incoming plants.
Mentally, or (better yet) on paper, draw an outline of the desired shape and size of your garden bed. Decide exactly where it should go and plan accordingly. Calculate your compost needs from the approximate square footage of gardening space.
Use this equation to calculate your compost needs:
Cubic feet compost = Square footage of gardening space x 0.5 ft
Step 2: Lay Down the Cardboard
Cover the entire area with overlapping layers of cardboard.
Make sure there are no gaps for weeds or grass to grow through. Better to go overkill on this step than be fighting it month after month.
Step 3: Add the Compost
Spread a 6 inch layer of compost or well-rotted manure over the cardboard. This will provide nutrients for your plants and help the cardboard break down faster.
Step 4: Create Pathways
Outline the desired pathways around and through your garden bed. You want to think about where you will need to walk to have access to your plants for watering, harvesting, and weeding. Cover the cardboard pathways with a thick layer of wood chips or other mulch.
Step 5: Wait and Plant
At this stage you can either allow the cardboard and compost to decompose for a few weeks or you can plant directly into the compost. Just make sure that the compost itself is fully decomposed.
The cardboard will act as a weed barrier, suffocating the grass and other plants below from sunlight. Over time the cardboard below will decompose and provide more organic matter to your soil.
Step 6: Maintain Your Garden
Water regularly and add additional compost or mulch as needed. Utilize other homemade gardening amendments to further aid in nutrient delivery to plant roots, and decomposition of plant debris and cardboard..
The Cheap Method
Follow all the steps above except Step 3: Add the Compost. Here, and this is especially relevant if you are covering a lot of space all at once, you will calculate your compost needs using the following equation:
Cubic feet compost = Square footage of gardening space x 1/12 ft
That’s right, lay down 1 inch of compost—just enough to weigh down your cardboard. Then on Step 5, instead of planting into the compost, push the compost aside, cut through the cardboard, and plant directly into the soil beneath.
This method will cost you pennies and wastes no time. It is NOT the ideal, however, if you are aching to get plants in the ground (as we always are) and you have nowhere to put them…you gotta start somewhere!
Conclusion
This may be the ultimate no-till method of starting garden bed. Tillage is not the biggest evil in the gardening world, but it does do greater harm than help to your soil. Tilling destroys fungi networks, kills beneficial bacteria and fungi and brings dormant weed seeds to the surface to germinate. Especially with methods like the ones described above, consider tilling as a last-resort.