This is seriously the best idea I have heard of in a very long time! For those of us who don't enjoy the thought of tearing out sod and trying to start a new garden this is brilliant!
The idea is that you just use those bags of triple mix or top soil (personally I would go with the triple mix since it is a much richer bag of dirt for nutrients and such) and place them on the ground and cut an opening in the top and a few drainage holes in the bottom and garden directly in the bag! No weeds since the bag is not allowing them to come through!
My Mom read an article about this idea and then I found this one online at the Vegetable Gardener
For me I need to move our very large vegetable patch to a different area of our yard. The problem is that the trees shade it for a good part of the afternoon. I imagine that our veggie garden was there from the beginning in this spot behind the barn a hundred years ago but someone planted trees about 20 or 30 years ago and the are now very big! The thought of trying to dig up a decent sized patch is a bit daunting so I thought that getting a few bags each year would be a good start on the move.
My plan is to lay out a thick pad of newsprint and wet it down on the grass to keep grass and weeds growing between the bags. Then lay about 9 bags of triple mix 3 x 3 on the newsprint with drainage holes punched through the back. I know the plastic isn't going to look all that nice but it will be great to kill the grass in that area. I'm going to plant in the bags this year and then next spring I will remove all the plastic and leave the dirt on the decomposing newsprint for the new garden. Each year I will add a new section of newsprint and bags so that eventually I'll have the veggie patch the size I would like.
I love the idea that you get the rich soil and not have to try to remove all that sod and eventually you'll have a great garden without serious back injury from all that digging!!
