Killing a lawn

I am currently in the process of removing part of my lawn to enable me to have more gardening space. What is the best way of preventing the grass from re-growing ?

 

Spray it with a Glyphosate based weedkiller perhaps?

 

Just double dig it and put the grass turf upside-down at the bottom of the trench. It won't grow back and will rot down into a lovely loam to feed your new plants.

 

Does it not depend on the depth of the topsoil? If the top soil is only, say 8 inches before you hit horrid subsoil, which may be pure clay, wont double digging shift the good soil too deep for most plant roots to benefit from and awful subsoil in the rooting zone, requiring the addition of tonnes of organic matter like manure or compost?

Its also a lot of work. Personally I'd poison it off with glyphosate, then just dig it over once it was dead. Once the weather has been in and loosened and dried it all, I'd do it again with a fork and a rake to get the bulk of the dead grass, but I wouldn't care if I didn't get it all, because it wont harm anything.

 

Obviously how you prepare it does depend on your soil and what you intend to plant there, but generally a lawn will be pretty compacted pretty far down which is not ideal for most other things.
If you have a shallow clay pan, surely digging it over and incorporating loads of organic matter is exactly what you want to do?
Just leaving it isn't going to be a much of a foundation for the plants to follow. IMO

 

It all depends what you see when you start digging. I cant see how there could ever be a one size fits all when the range of different conditions you can expect to find even in a relatively small area is almost infinite.

I have a chunk of land (3 acres), where in parts, its lovely dark, rich peaty soil down to about 1ft, then a few yards away you find shallow soil on top of sand, and in another spot its just solid clay and awful to work with, all within a few paces of each other.

Digging the back garden here, I found about 2/3rds of the garden was pure awfulness encarnate. Clay packed so solid I couldn't even get the pick axe in (and I have plenty of experience with a pick). The 1/3rd down the end is much nicer soil. Wife has become friends with a lady who lived here as a little girl, and all became clear. The first 2/3rds was all grass for playing in, and the last 1/3rd was her dad's bit, which he used for growing veg.

I still wouldn't double dig to get rid of a lawn except in rare circumstances where by some miracle, I found good soil down to a good depth, or where I'd planned to dig in half a tonne or so of compost anyway, but that's just my opinion

 

I keep the layers separate when I double dig. if the subsoil is yucky (mine is) I would put the turf at the bottom of the top spit, having first loosened the bottom spit, or dug if (if I was double digging properly)

 

Sorry, just realised, I'm a fool this morning. Double digging doesn't bring the subsoil to the surface. I should have known this, I did it in a large section of my back garden just after we moved in when I was trying to bring it back to life.

 

Double digging it is then, not looking forward to back ache !

 

Just checking that you know the "drill" for that?

 

Not entirely sure. Help me !

 

If you have any. Sodium chlorate will most definitely kill your lawn....

 

Firstly Sodium chlorate is banned as a weedkiller. Secondly it won't be possible to grow anything in the soil for at least 6 months, probably 12.

You dig a trench one "spit" (the depth of a spade) deep and barrow that soil to the end of the area that you are digging.

Then you loosen the soil in the bottom of that trench (the second Spit deep), and mix some muck in it if you want to.

You then start the second strip. You can then strip off any turf (whether alive or dead - even if dead its likely to have weed seeds on/in it) and lay that, face down in the trench for the first strip.

You then dig the second strip and place it into the trench you just made for the first strip. Thus the open trench has moved from the first strip to the second. Loosen the bottom of the trench in the second strip, incorporating any manure etc. and then proceed to the third strip.

When you get to the end you fill in the final trench with the soil that you barrowed there are the outset.

Proper double digging will dig out the first spit from the strip 1 AND strip 2 and barrow that to the far end, and also the second spit from strip 1 (but stacked to keep it separate). and then you dig the first and second spits, separately, into the previous trench as you go - and loosen up the third spit if you like. If you hit subsoil at a depth of the first spit deep then I don't think there is any point doing the full double-dig, just loosening the soil in the second spit depth, and the bottom of the trench, will be good enough - and a lot less work!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_digging


http://elgincommunitygarden.wordpress.com/2010/03/22/double-digging-makes-gardens-grow/

 

Sodium Chlorate is not banned as a weedkiller. There is no law against using some you may have as a weedkiller.
The sale of Sodium Chlorate in the EU has been banned because people were using it to make bombs.

As for the soil, yeah it will ruin the ground for growing. My comment was tongue in cheek hence the "..." after it. Sorry if this didn't come across in text.