Starting a new garden

[BayouStateVol]

I have recently moved from Louisiana to Sumner County and I have some beautiful open space that I want to use as a veritable garden.

My question is how do I prep the space for my garden. I don't want it over grown with bermuda/weeds/grass mid summer. About half the area is dormant right now. The other half is green with weeds.

I was thinking of some smaller raised beds, line the bottom with newspaper and fill in with dirt and manure. Any other ideas?

 

[GRAMPS]

Wife and I now only garden with raised beds. We fill the beds with 6" of sand and top it off with 2" of compost. We make our compost from horse manure that is covered with black plastic in a compost bin and allowed to cook under the plastic for two months. After two months, the manure will be crumbly compost ready for planting.

 

[WMAn]

Here you go:

http://www.amazon.com/All-New-Square-Fo ... +gardening

I'm getting started this year too and using this book as a guide. Very easy to follow.

 

[pressfit]

For years I just turned a spot with my tractor, tilled it down smooth, planted and when the weeds started..well I hoed and hoed and hoed.. I tried several things to fight the weeds, even one time got a load of used carpet that was cut in 12 inch wide strips and layed them in the rows.. that was 15 years ago and im still pulling carpet strings up every now and then.. last year was the first time i didnt put in a garden in.. i dont know how many years.. i finally figured out that gardening was a full time job and I already have a couple of jobs plus tooo many hobbies..

 

[TNDeerGuy]

I have the same type of yard that you do and what I did when we moved in 5 years ago was too till the area up I wanted and then rake and get as much of the grass/roots out as possible. I then layed down landscape weed-free fabric and covered it with about 4 inches of non-treated, non-color mulch and I haven't had any problems. Although, I'm seriously thinking about going to a hydroponic garden and giving that a try just to do something different.

 

[catman529]

Bermuda is the devil good luck with it. Once you till and remove as much rhizomes as possible I would use a woven weed fabric (the plastic woven kind not burlap or mesh) and put at least a couple inches of mulch on top of that to block any sunlight and suppress the weed growth. You can cut an X in the fabric wherever you plant a seedling or seeds.