Breaking ground for your first vegetable garden is exciting! But it can also bring up a lot of questions. After you’ve selected a sunny, well-drained spot with good access, it’s time to get to work. 

When creating a new in-ground garden from a grassy spot, there are two basic options for dealing with the sod and preparing the soil: till it, or use a no-till method. Both options work to create a new garden, but there are differences in initial effort, cost, and speed. We’ll walk through both options to get your new location ready for planting. 

Tilling to create a new garden bed

Before the popularity of no-till, there was pretty much one way to create a new garden or garden bed in the yard: dig it up. It’s simple, a lot of work, but still very effective. 

While many no-till advocates (and I am one, sort of) still shudder at the thought of mechanical tillage, aka a rototiller, quite a few of us have become accepting of what you might call low-till. In other words, go ahead and use a tiller to create a new garden out of compacted sod. We’ll limit its use after that to restore the beneficial soil conditions we want in our garden.

Sod removal

The first step is getting rid of the sod. There are two practical choices: cut and remove all the sod, or make multiple passes with the tiller to tear it up. Both have advantages and problems. For myself, the method I choose usually depends on the size of the new plot or bed I’m creating. For smaller beds, say a new 15’x3’ flower bed, I’ll remove the sod. A 20’x50’ expansion of the veggie patch calls for the tiller.

Removing the sod for small plots can be done with a shovel and a wheelbarrow. Digging nearly parallel to the surface, cut deep enough to get most of the grass roots (you’ll never get them all) and remove the sod in shovel-sized chunks. Usually, removing a 2-to 3-inch-thick layer is a good start. Toss it in a wheelbarrow and use it to fill in low spots in the yard, or let it compost down into a pile of soil behind the garage. 

For medium-sized plots, other tools are available for rent. A manual sod cutter, moved through the soil by foot power, works well if there aren’t too many rocks to contend with. Large gas-powered machines are also available, but unless you have a truly large area to deal with, they probably aren’t worth the expense and hassle.

How do you remove sod with a tiller? I’ve developed an effective method I’ll share with you. Watch the weather and wait for the first of a few sunny days in a row with no rain. 

On that first bright day, till the patch, making at least three passes, all in different directions. Think of going left-right, up-down, and then diagonally. The reason is that all tillers leave a spot where they can’t reach in the middle, and often they’ll gyrate around and dig deeper in one spot and shallowly in another. Making three passes helps to get down deep and to ensure a uniform job. 

Right when you’ve finished, grab any large sod chunks and toss them out of the garden in a pile. Now, let the tilled up sod cook in the sun, dehydrating roots and drying out clumps. After about two days, most of the remaining sod chunks will be dried out, shriveled, and close to dead. Use a garden rake to lightly gather them up. Repeat in another day or two. You’ll have removed a large majority of the sod, and loosened the soil at the same time. 

Loosening the soil and removing rocks

If you used a tiller, the soil has been loosened, and you can pick out any large rocks as you go. Don’t worry about the tiny rocks the size of gravel. You can go batty trying to get them all. 

If you didn’t use a tiller and instead cut the sod off with a shovel or sod cutter, you’ll now need to loosen the soil beneath. 

While any digging tool will do, I prefer a stout garden fork. A garden fork will reduce how many worms you cut in half, is easier to push into the soil, and makes busting clumps a breeze. The goal isn’t to flip the soil like a plow, but to break up compaction so water and air can pass. Of course, pick out any rocks as you go.

Adding compost, organic material, and getting a soil test

After removing the sod and loosening the soil, it’s time to amend it. Unless your yard was recently covered with screened topsoil and enriched with compost, you’ll likely want to add organic material. 

Organic materials like compost, shredded leaves, and aged manure improve soil structure, fertility, and drainage. The soil will hold more plant-available water and drain more efficiently when excess water is present. Compost and organic material are a gardener’s best friend. 

For new garden beds, a 2-3-inch layer of compost worked into the soil provides a healthy start, but it can get expensive. To save money in the first year, lay out where the paths will be and skip compost application on that bit.

Ideally, we’d get a soil test well before planting time, but that isn’t always how life works out. Most of us, myself included, are too impatient to miss an entire season while we have a soil test performed, wait for the results, amend the soil accordingly, and then plant. If you haven’t got a soil test yet, go ahead and plant anyway. Do still take a soil sample and send it in. You’ll have good information to work with in the future. 

No-till method for new gardens

No-till gardens are wonderful for the soil microbial life. But, don’t believe the influencers who make it seem like they’re also no-work, and nature does everything for you. I’ve started several no-till veggie patches, and I can attest there’s still plenty to do.

First, smother the sod

Veggies and grass don’t mix, so you’ll still have to get rid of the sod. In this case, instead of removing it, we smother it. If you’ve left a piece of wood lying in the grass over the summer, you might have noticed it killed the grass underneath. That’s what we’re going to do, except on a garden scale.

Option 1: Use a light-blocking tarp

The most effective way to begin is with a completely light-blocking tarp. Not the inexpensive blue ones, but something that lets zero light through. Anchor it down against the wind over your new garden, and wait for about two months, then take a peek. If the grass is dead and has started to decompose, you’re ready. If it’s not dead yet, wait a bit longer.

The amount of time varies, from as short as two months in summer to several months in cooler weather. If you can tarp in late summer to prepare for a spring planting, that’s probably ideal.

Option 2: Cardboard

The tarp method takes time, and we don’t always feel like waiting, which gave rise to the plant-it-now method using cardboard. The idea is to lay down a double layer of clean cardboard over the grass, cover that with soil and compost, and then plant straight off. The layers of cardboard and soil kill the grass, and by the time the vegetable roots reach the cardboard, it will have decomposed sufficiently to allow new roots to grow through. 

Large pieces of cardboard work best, and you’ll want to overlap the edges. If you’re planting flowers or vegetables, you’ll need to add an extra-thick layer of compost, topsoil, and mulch to support plant growth, which brings us to the next step.

Adding compost, topsoil,and organic materials

With the tarp method for smothering sod, the soil underneath usually softens, and you can spread a layer of compost over the top, work it in with a garden fork, and get to planting. 

The cardboard method requires the addition of a lot of material. I recommend a starting depth of 8-10 inches of material on top of the cardboard. Top soil, mulch, and compost will settle over the course of a month. If you started with a six-inch layer, it will soon be only two or three inches deep. With the cardboard method, the ground underneath wasn’t loosened, and will remain rather compact for a while. It will take a couple of years for the worms and other soil life to mix it up and loosen the deeper soil.

The larger amount of added materials can significantly increase the cost. As an example, to fill a small new garden 8’ wide by 20’ long and ten inches deep, you’d need about 5 yards of material (a small dump truck load) or about 135 standard 1.0 cubic foot bags. It can get more expensive, but it is ready to go right away.

Nuggets of Advice for New Gardens

• The importance of removing or killing the grass cannot be overstated. Extra effort in the beginning pays dividends for years.

• Weeds will be fierce the first year. Don’t neglect mulching. A 1-2 inch thick layer of clean, dry grass clippings or straw will help greatly.

• You may need a fence, even in town. A family of hungry rabbits can cause garden heartache in only one night. 

• Set up a rain gauge, and empty it after each rain. If you haven’t received an inch of rain this week, it’s probably time to water.

• Keep a few notes. If you aren’t a journaling kind of person, use your phone to keep a visual record. 

• The garden doesn’t have to be perfect in year one. I have several large flower beds with amazing, deep soil, but it was built up over five years, not all at once.