Getting rid of a lawn

[newtarheel]

I'm about to take delivery on a B7800 with backhoe, FEL, and tiller. Part of my plan is to replace about a half acre of lawn with a vegetable garden. Can I use the FEL to scrape the green stuff away? Is tilling a possibility? Or does the grass just grow back after tilling?
By the way, I'm tapped out after all this buying, so there's no question of buying other implements right now.
Can you compost sod?

 

[rswyan]

Or does the grass just grow back after tilling?

Keep it tilled and it won't grow back.

Seriously, I'd just till it.

 

[RobJ]

I'd say another time where a tractor may not be the best answer. Since you don't have a BB, see if you can rent a sod cutter. $60 at my local home Depot for 4 hours. Even with a half acre it won't take that long, it screams! Set the depth to day the roots. Hardest part is cleaning up all the waste. Probably can backdrag it into a pile and burn later. When you are done you have no grass or roots mixed in like you would with a tiller.

Good Luck!

 

[slowrev]

For me the quickest way to kill a lawn has been to want it to grow well. Grass always grows best where you don't want it to grow.

Seriously though if it is still warm enough where you are, roundup it.
Ben

 

[Hard]

I've done that by using Round-Up to kill it then a box scraper to tear it out. The use your FEL to move the piles.

Before I got my box scraper I would kill it with Round-Up and till it. I then had some good quality topsoil brought in with amendments and tilled that in to the area where I killed the grass. Grass never came back and the shrubbs and other plants I put in have done very well.

 

[Bird]

Keep it tilled and it won't grow back.

Seriously, I'd just till it.

That's exactly what I did when I converted part of my pasture to garden. I simply tilled it, and every time it rained, I tilled it again as soon as it was dry enough to till.

 

[Duke4AZ]

Hard has the right idea. In AZ the move is to get rid of water sucking lawns and put in "natural" desert landscapes. The landscaping industry method of getting rid of grass is to hit it with a post-emergent herbicide, then either till it in if it is to be used for a garden or other growing area or just scrape the surface to get rid of the dead thatch and put the top rock mulch (ground cover) over the top of the dead grass. Spot treat any residual hangers on with the herbicide until the problem goes away. Round-Up is the best I have found to do the job. In your case with wanting to plant a garden, the tiller would be the implement to use after killing the grass. And don't worry about the Round-Up affecting your growing plans. It is not going to cause any future growth problems.

 

[flusher]

I'm about to take delivery on a B7800 with backhoe, FEL, and tiller. Part of my plan is to replace about a half acre of lawn with a vegetable garden. Can I use the FEL to scrape the green stuff away? Is tilling a possibility? Or does the grass just grow back after tilling?
By the way, I'm tapped out after all this buying, so there's no question of buying other implements right now.
Can you compost sod?

Use the tiller and FEL.

The 4-ft box blades that your tractor can handle are too lightweight to efficiently scrape thick sod. You need to add a lot of weight to the BB to get it to work OK.

I have a B7510HST with the LA302 FEL. I bought a 4-ft King Kutter box blade at TSC and then added 360 lb of concrete weights to get it to cut through thick turf.

 

[Billy_S]

I agree with the CONCEPT of using Roundup, but there are cheaper alternatives. Look at a farm supply store for a product called Glystar or Kilz-All. About half the price of Roundup.

 

[RalphVa]

I plowed up some really tough tall fescue to put in my approximately 25x50 garden down along the creek. Plowed it with a Gravely rotary plow. You could do it with your tiller, but you'll end up with grass wrapped around every part of it. I did all mine before learning about Roundup, that any excess is tied up in the clay soil particles and won't affect new growth. So, doing it now, I'd mow it close and then use Roundup (really won't take much unless you want a monster garden). Then about 10 days to 2 weeks later, use your tiller to till it all in.

If you mulch well and keep it weeded, you really won't have to till again. Sell your tiller. I've sold the Gravely and rotary plow and really won't need my soil ripper on my 4010 again in my garden plot.

Ralph