Tilling and Amending a New Garden

Retired UT Extension Agent Mike Dennison shows how to get a section of turf grass ready to become a new garden. He is doing this in the fall so the amendments have time to break down over the winter. The first thing he did was get a soil test. The soil test allows him to know exactly what to do to the ground with fertilizer and amendments. He sprayed the area that would be tilled with glyphosate (Round-up). This killed the grass. The grass yellowed but did not turn brown. This is because in the cooler weather the grass was not growing. The grass is still dead, just not brown. Then he tilled the grass. After that he added three inches of amendments to the top of the soil. Lime is best added when tilling but he did not add any because the soil test said the soil was very basic already. He then went over the soil several times with the rototiller to mix the amendments in. Mike only tilled half of the garden because the other half was too wet to work.

Related Videos:
Rototilling a Garden
Soil Preparation

Related Resources:
Soil Preparation
Improving Garden Soil