Doubled, Smothered, and Covered (How To Kill Your Lawn)

This time of year, I spend a lot of time removing sod from my lawn to build more vegetable beds.  Most often, I use a shovel to cut 1 foot square chunks into the lawn, rip to grass and soil pieces out of the ground, flip them over, and put them back where they came from. If you add some compost overtop to smooth out the cobblestone effect, it actually works pretty well. I've grown lots of vegetables in beds prepared this way. 

This year I'm also try to smother the grass with black plastic. Over the course of several weeks the grass dies due to lack of light and also from the searing hot temperatures that can build up under the plastic. Unfortunately, I've found that cultivating the area is still necessary after the plastic is removed. I use the same method as described above (it's just a lot easier once the plants are dead and the roots don't have as much hold).

My black plastic weed killing method seems to be working quite well. Hopefully I can move the plastic to new areas relatively soon and smother some more of my lawn. Less to mow!

I'm also trying a somewhat ambitious lawn killing project this year. I'm planning to put plastic and straw mulch on all the paths between my raised beds and regular beds. I should have done this to begin with because it's a pain to mow around the labyrinth of beds.

I ran out of plastic and straw before I finished, but you get the idea.