Need advice on tomato garden

[MariT]

This will be my first time ever so please help me out here.

I have plans for a tomato garden and the spot has grass. How do I get rid of the grass? Should I use pesticide? Should I make a lasagna bed?

Thank you for your help.

[gumbo2176]

This will be my first time ever so please help me out here.

I have plans for a tomato garden and the spot has grass. How do I get rid of the grass? Should I use pesticide? Should I make a lasagna bed?

Thank you for your help.

How many tomato plants do you want to plant? How large is the plot you are going to use for this? If you are only talking about less than a dozen tomato plants, simply use a shovel to dig down a foot or so deep and about 2 feet wide and figure about 3 ft. between plants. When you turn over the soil, remove the grass and as much of the roots as possible.

Like mentioned, for tomato plants I like to leave at least 3 ft. between plants. With that much room, I find there is an advantage when it comes to diseases and fungi attacking your plants. Tomato plants get pretty large and I've had many get to be 5-6 ft. tall in a season. Even at 3 ft. apart, they often come into contact with adjoining plants. Plants put in the ground in the spring are usually done in the mid summer in my area.

Also, tomato plants should be staked or trained on a trellis of some sort. If left on their own they will cascade on the ground and then they are more prone to diseases and you will get a lot of fruit rot. At least that has been my experience over the years.

[rainbowgardener]

This will be my first time ever so please help me out here.

I have plans for a tomato garden and the spot has grass. How do I get rid of the grass? Should I use pesticide? Should I make a lasagna bed?

Thank you for your help.

Pesticide is for pests, I.e. insects, and will do nothing against your grass. I think you meant herbicide, which is plant poison. I don't believe in using plant poisons or pesticides, since they are pretty invariably harmful to the environment. However, that is a philosophical question that you have to answer for yourself, how much environmental harm you are willing to do, whether you want to be an organic gardener, etc. If you are planning to use some herbicide/insecticide/other poison, I hope you will at least research it, so you have some idea of how much harm you are choosing to do.

Organically, there are a lot of choices. You can strip your sod off and compost it. You can dig the sod up and just turn it upside down so the grass is buried and then pile topsoil on top. This gives you a big deep soil bed right away, but is likely to result in some of the grass coming back after awhile. Or you can do as I think you were talking about with the lasagna bed -- leave the grass alone, cover it with layers of paper/cardboard and then cover that with good enriched topsoil & compost and plant in to that.

I have made three different beds out of sections of my lawn by the cover the grass with cardboard and add topsoil and compost method and it has worked very well for me. The grass is smothered and does not come back and you can plant in to it right away. However, if it is a section of your lawn, like mine, then you need to have edging around your bed, that goes at least a few inches down in to the soil or the grass will come in from the sides.

Best Wishes with your new tomato garden. Once you have tasted your vine ripened tomatoes, you will never go back!

[tomc]

Organic consideration aside, herbicides are like nuclear weapons. They don't stay where you bomb, and any good enough to kill what you want gone is good enough (and persistant enough) to kill or injure what you DO want in later seasons.

Try a search for "solarization" and "light blocking mulches". see if those are something you can live with.

[Smallgardener]

I am a Herbicide kinda person. Been working with Herbicides for 20 year now on a regular basis. but I always keep them to a minimum. There is not reason to overdue it. With that being said I would look at using a fabric type mulch if the area is not too big. Till up the area where each plant will be like gumbo said. The black fabric will block out the unwanted grass everywhere but where the maters are. Always keep the sod or top soil it is the best soil. I like to use a no till aproach in my garden. It lets the soil struckture stay porus, and water infiltration will benefit. It might be of benifit to you to hit the grass before you lat down the black fabric with a Roundup type product. It would slow down the grass depending on the spicies. Just my 2 cents.