Bryan LeGare

Thanks Bippy, I appreciate your input!

Solarizing with black plastic would be very difficult as it would prevent the solar rays from entering the soil and being trapped under the clear plastic; black will absorb heat, but it won't transmit it very far into the soil. In order to be effective, the soil needs to reach extreme temps to kill off (most) all the seeds and pretty much all of the nasty bugs. UC Davis has some interesting articles on solarization free to the public from their website www.ipm.ucdavis.edu

I was actually able to find some additional info (Google) on people solarizing lawns and it seems that it isn't really necessary to dig it out before hand (realizing that there may be some bounce-back growth from some deep rooted varieties). I am going to give it a shot come June/July to see how it works. I'll post back the results (if I can remember)

Thanks again for your input, I picked up some valuable info on sheet composting!

Hope I have the right forum here (Newbie). I want to get rid of all the lawn on the property I recently purchased and replace with local drought tolerant varieties (ground covers, bushes, trees). Because the lawn is/was both fescue and some bermuda along the boarders, I'm wondering if I would need to dig it all out by hand (I'm disabled) before solarizing. My primary reason for solarizing is to kill off all the grass/weed seeds and unwanted bugs, as well as helping to release some of the soluble nutrients. I live in Fresno CA so getting soil temp to 150-165 degrees is very obtainable in summer months using a solarization method, but wonder if leaving the old turf there would be an insulator to the soil? I stopped all watering when I moved in five months ago so most all of the lawn area's are brown (we've had only a very small bit of rain). Has anyone done this? Any help/input greatly appreciated. Cheers!