Zhen Ting Ching

Thank you all for your help and suggestions! I forgot to take photos again today, but can try to add some to this thread soon. To answer R. Han, I have used contractor's paper, and later cardboard from Amazon and similar boxes, and I try to cover it with at least 4" of compost. After reading through the posts, I'm sure that's not enough, especially since I have not been diligent (or had enough time, actually) to keep all the beds planted. My plan in the front beds was to have a thick cover crop, mow it down before it went to seed, then cover with wood chips. Well, it didn't end up being very thick--I think partly because of lack of water, and partly because birds ate a lot of the sprouts. We ended up having to weed whack instead because the mower wasn't working on some of it, so it's still kind of rough--I need to go back and hand-pull some of the cover crops before putting in the rest of the plants in the bed.

Here's what I'm thinking as a plan from here . . . please let me know if you think it will work, and any improvements to the plan:
1. Buy an edger (WORX WG896 12 Amp 7.5" Electric Lawn Edger & Trencher) and edge around all the beds. This one goes only 1-1/2" deep, but it would at least cut through the tough runners that take me forever to pull by hand once they've started matting up.
2. Buy a hand edger (the half-moon type) & go over the edges to create deeper trenches for #3 (I've got hundreds of feet of bed edging to do, so I'm thinking that using an electric edger first would make the job much more bearable.)
3.a. Install 5" terrace board around all the beds, the thickest I can find (is Master Mark brand okay? One review says it doesn't hold up when edged with an edger). Or if our budget can handle it, the "Grass Barrier" brand 10" landscape edging which supposedly works even for Bermuda grass. (As an aside, slugs and snails are a huge problem here and I'm thinking that landscape edging will just give them another place to hide, but I don't see a better option except for getting ducks, which we hope to do soon.)
3.b. Either in addition to or instead of 3.a., get the "GoldenEdge" edging blade. This makes a 1/2" wide thick edge which would possibly allow me to better grab runners that cross it, but it's not very deep.
4. Add a couple more inches of compost, 10 layers of newspaper and/or 2 layers of cardboard, and as much wood chips as possible, at least a few inches.
5. Plant transplants or seeds by creating a pocket of compost around them within the wood chips. Try sowing mustard wherever I don't have plants yet, to keep the ground covered. (Though I'm doubting this will work on top of wood chips? Mine are breaking down pretty quickly, though--they will probably be similar to my compost a few months from now.)
6. Edge as needed to keep runners out.
7. Be prompt about mowing grass to keep seeds out!
8. When grass comes through, weed it out as much as possible, then cover with paper or cardboard and more mulch.

I'd love to find a cheaper way, but with the rate at which things grow and decompose here, I'd have to layer on cardboard and wood chips every month or two if I was going to depend on that alone. Not only do I not want to use that much cardboard in my garden, but it would involve a lot more wood chips than I have access to right now, and probably take up the bulk of my gardening time. I really want to simplify so that I have time to do something besides deal with grass. Also, if I just keep piling on without any terrace board or landscape edging, I end up with a "raised" bed that has no sides to hold everything in, and the wood chips and compost quickly wash out into the grass, which is happy to grow through it.

I'm still wondering if we're going to go through all this trouble anyway, if I should just bite the bullet and scrape all the compost off onto a tarp to try to get down to the grass roots that are still underneath, and pick-axe them out. I'd hate to build a great barrier at the edges, but still have it growing up from underneath (and competing with my plants' roots) years later.

TIA!

I have started several garden beds with cardboard and compost (attempted lasagna / Back to Eden method), and in our climate (Hawaii), the grass is coming right through. We're heading into the rainy season, so it's only going to get worse. What would you recommend at this point? I already have some perennials and cover crops and a few other plants in the beds, but lots of empty space for grass, and even thick wood chips on top (where I have put them) don't seem to help. The grass comes up in spots all through the bed--usually with not enough root to really get hold of--and thickly around the edges of the beds.

These are the options I've thought of so far; please let me know if you have any other suggestions:

1. After watching a video from Mossy Bottom (YouTuber) where he explains different soils and when some tilling is needed before starting no-till, I'm thinking maybe I should start over and just till all the cover crops and compost into our rock-hard clay...but I doubt even that would kill the grass that's still alive underneath.  

2. Scrape all the compost off onto a tarp to reuse, pull up what's left of the cardboard, and go after the grass with a grub hoe--lots of elbow grease. Then put new cardboard, a thicker layer of compost, and wood chips down immediately (I've probably also messed up by delaying adding wood chips in the past because I'm trying to grow most things from seed and four inches of wood chips would smother the seeds).

3. David the Good's cheap and easy method--just cover the grass with another layer or two of cardboard and mulch. But I'm pretty sure I'll have to do it again within a month or two...and it doesn't work well for growing from seed (though I could just start growing in pots to transplant instead).

4. Or (and I can't believe I'm saying this), I might just have to break down and buy weed cloth.  

Whichever option I use to kill/cover the grass, maybe I should follow it by immediately and thickly planting transplants of sweet potato and/or squash? Then repeat cardboard and mulch yearly and as needed?

In addition to grass growing up through the now-soft cardboard, another problem is that we don't have defined edges to the garden beds--just small tree trunks or rocks, and the grass around the beds grows through really easily. I love the natural look of the rocks (found on our property), but am thinking we might need to remove them, dig trenches, and put plastic edging--or else just be really faithful with an edger and weeding. Sounds like from some people's experience with creeper grasses, even that might not work, though.

I want to work with God's design and maintain the joy (just watched https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=moAPtoIJy2M), but at this point all I can do is try to keep the grass from taking back over and eating up all our carefully laid compost--there's no time left for actually gardening! Suggestions? Thanks in advance!!