Converting Grass to Garden

[Lisa Kairos]

My husband and I bought our house 2 years ago, and have slowly been chipping away at the neglected yard, converting it to drought tolerant garden beds of mixed perennials, wildflowers, herbs, and veggies. We've gotten quite a lot done in the back, but our front yard is the usual suburban expanse of lawn. And not just any lawn.... crabgrass lawn. Does anyone have experience getting rid of this type of grass (bermuda, crabgrass, etc)? What worked, and what didn't, how long did it take? This grass seems impossible to get rid of ... help!

[Andrea]

What worked for me was to cover the area with old broken down cardboard boxes until it died. It was easier to dig up this way. The trick though is to do it when it can get hot enough for solarization to occur which kills it totally back. I did it over the summer and I live in Florida so it only took a few weeks to get hot enough to turn yellow and die. After I planted the area and mulched, I still had to do a lot of weeding the first year to get rid of some of the seeds that managed to live. Hope this helps!

[GreenFrieda]

I took out my front yard and replaced it with drought-tolerant plants about 4 years ago. Getting rid of the grass was definitely the hardest part.

Black landscape plastic over the grass will help. I have also seen people do a layer of cardboard, cover that layer with mulch and then bake it over a summer. I did neither of those things. Instead, I let the grass die on its own by not watering it. Then we dug up the whole yard, got rid of as many grass chunks and runners and we could and planted the new plants. This resulted in a lot of invasive grass the following 2 years--although only in the winter when it rained. After a couple of winters of pulling the grass out by the roots and ripping up all the runners I could find, I have pretty much gotten rid of all the grass. But, yea, if you can be patient, I'd try the cardboard or black plastic method. And then spray vinegar on any grass that crops up. That will usually kill it.

[Kurt]

I can suggest a mixture of fermented sugars , see weed and some herbal extracts.Because of you having crabgras your soil might be lacking nutrients which have to be balanced to get a healthy soil. Weeds and crabgras usually appears where the soil is lacking something. If your soil gets healthy you might have a really beautiful lawn.
If you want to reseed the area you also can use a horitculture vinegard (20%) to spray on Dont worry its all natural.
Any questions? Just tell me.