Transistioning Bermuda grass lawn into new garden beds

I’m trying to expand my gardening area another 1,000 sq ft in time to plant more fall/winter crops (borderlime between 7b and 8a), but time has gotten away from me and the clock is ticking down before I miss my window. I’m battling the dreaded Bermuda grass rhizomes and really want to eradicate it well so I’m not forever haunted. I‘d like to use Curtis Stone’s silage tarp method, but I’m afraid it won’t be down long enough to really do the job.


The plan of attack I was thinking is mow it down to the dirt then layer it with cardboard before covering with the silage tarp. That way the tarp can start a heat spike to solarize it some, but the cardboard can at least stay down after I have to pull it off then spread a few inches of compost right on top of that. I do have some Ortho GroundClear that’s rated safe for organic gardening, but if it’s effectiveness on poison ivy is any indication of it‘s killing power then I don’t know if it’d be able to stand up to Bermuda rhizomes either, but could help to start weakening it.. Or agricultural vinegar if it would dissipate in time and not cause too much damage to microbe life. Should I go ahead and invest in a flame weeder? I‘d prefer to not till, but if that’d help kickstart the breakdown process then I could do it the one time. Any opinions or experience with killing off a tenacious Bermuda lawn would be greatly appreciated!

I have lots of Bermuda on my property and I am not winning the fight against it at present—just coexisting with it.

I have not had good luck smothering it. The rhizomes don't need sun to survive and they can run along for yards to surface at the other end of your tarp. It will also find any holes or gaps and spread aggressively all over the top of the tarp. When I have tried sheet mulching over it the Bermuda will have entirely taken the area over by the end of the growing season. I've tried one organic herbicide (Bonide Burn-Out) and the Bermuda was unfazed.

I think the best bets are either solarization with clear tarps or repeated tillage. If you till heavily, then let the plant resprout for a couple weeks, then till again, then repeat the process again, it is supposed to exhaust the plant's resources and eventually kill it. I haven't read anything about flame weeding but I bet it could work; however, I would think that the solarization or flame weeding will require extended, disciplined effort to truly eliminate it, just like the tillage method.

All of that's to say, I'm not sure there's a quick solution. And I think if it's feasible it is worth taking the time to kill it properly, even if it means you won't get the use out of that bed this season. I haven't done that and it's probably going to come to that at some point—leaving my garden fallow for a season to finally get the Bermuda out once and for all. I, at least, find it nearly impossible to stay on top of when it's actively growing.

Good luck! And report back if you find anything brilliant.

The dreaded bermuda grass! I have thankfully moved away from a property where I fought with it. One thing you might try is renting a sod cutter from your local tool rental house. That cuts up the sod into strips that you can discard. Then for good measure, smother the bare ground left behind.

I used two layers of thick cardboard in my back yard, and covered it with about a foot of wood chips (probably less).  It's been three years, and every once in a while a shoot will come up through the wood chips.   Just last month I added more wood chips.  I did it during winter, so the grass was dormant.  I mowed it as low as I could before starting.  I literally spend less than twenty minutes per year pulling the runners, and most of them come up from the perimeter.
I built a 4' X 4' raised bed (sunken into the wood chips) last year, and there have been no runners coming into that box (I also put another layer of cardboard at the bottom of the box before I filled it with compost).  

In my front yard I used overlapped palm fronds with about a foot of wood chips on top.  They didn't work as well as the cardboard.  Lots of runners all over after the first year.  I put a layer of craft paper over the wood chips, and then covered the paper with another layer of wood chips.  I made sure not to walk on or disturb the wood chips/paper for the first year.  Now I have almost no runners at all (just a few here and there around the perimeter.

I used 5 gallon nursery pots with the very bottom cut out to use as planting holes to keep the wood chips out, and so I could get to the soil below this year.  I have had zero runners come out of the pots leading me to believe the grass is completely gone in most areas in the middle.

Meh, I can't water the front yard enough.  I think the fruitless mulberry is sucking all the water from the melons/cukes.  They're barely hanging on.

Also, palm fronds are a pain in the behind to cut through if you're planting in holes like I did.  They are so stringy!

Pictures probably explain better than my words.

I also live in a very dry climate.  For the last two years there has been zero rainfall from May until now.......and none in the foreseeable future.  I'd think I'd have had a lot more growth if there were moisture.  Of course I'm watering now with the drip, but it sat for a year before I put any water down.

Thank you so much for the input guys! I just purchased my childhood home (long story) and decided to begin focusing on a greenhouse and some gardens to start going to market with. It’s only an acre in a residential neighborhood, but no HOA so if I get on the ball I should be able to make a little something out of it.

I think I’ve got my plan of action. Going to try digging/cutting it out then covering with a tarp for a few weeks, temps are getting back in the 90’s so hopefully it can do some damage in that time. Then pulling tarps back to lay down cardboard and fill enough compost on top of it to grow fall greens. Once they’re pulled for the season then tarps go back on until April. I’ll be buying large silage tarps so there will be minimum gaps for anything to escape through. If I notice many sprouts bursting in next summer then I’ll probably stock up on plastic mulch from here on out..

I am trying to overcome some Centipede grass that I planted almost 20 years ago. Very much like Bermuda but grows slower. I have been piling the wood chips on top while I plant my Asian Fruits for my backyard orchard/food forest.
I just completed the second layer of wood chips and put them on thicker but the grass keeps popping up.  I do realize that I can reach my hands into the lose wood chips and easily pull out a lot of the Rhizomes since there is no dirt.  I am hoping that I can do this when the grass goes dormant. Maybe I can then use a rake and get more faster better cheaper.
Just bought a second hand Overland Electric Wheelbarrow to help with this effort and save my back. so the wood chipping will continue unabated.

Dennis Bangham wrote:I am trying to overcome some Centipede grass that I planted almost 20 years ago. Very much like Bermuda but grows slower. I have been piling the wood chips on top while I plant my Asian Fruits for my backyard orchard/food forest.
I just completed the second layer of wood chips and put them on thicker but the grass keeps popping up.  I do realize that I can reach my hands into the lose wood chips and easily pull out a lot of the Rhizomes since there is no dirt.  I am hoping that I can do this when the grass goes dormant. Maybe I can then use a rake and get more faster better cheaper.
Just bought a second hand Overland Electric Wheelbarrow to help with this effort and save my back. so the wood chipping will continue unabated.

Not sure if it's possible for you to do this, but I think another layer of cardboard, or heavy paper, or a few layers of newspaper over your existing layer of wood chips would snuff out most of it.  Of course you'd want to layer up wood chips on top of the new paper.  It worked really well for me with the bermuda grass.  I did not walk on top of it for a year for the most part, so if you're having to traffic over the area a lot, it might not work?

Good luck.

I respectfully submit this to everyone suggesting mulch for bermudagrass😂

Seems to me different strategies are appropriate for different sites.  When I lived in southern Georgia and grew almost an acre of veggies for market, I relied on tillage and mulch.  Usually thorough tilling followed by cardboard and paper mulch, topped with some kind of organic matter, mostly to keep the cardboard from blowing away.  Openings would be punched through for inserting transplants.  Usually this would subdue the grass long enough to get a crop, and all would compost away and need re-doing the following year, unless I decided to rotate that area into pasture or whatever.   Where I live now (California) I can't do paper or cardboard mulch, or really any mulch, due to fire hazard issues and the fact that it quickly becomes a habitat for huge numbers of earwigs, pillbugs, snails, etc.  A tilling will let me grow a crop for one season, where the grass isn't too bad yet, but it is spreading everywhere there is irrigation, and it can persist for years after withdrawing irrigation from a section.  My most serious gardens are in raised beds with metal mesh underneath, because of the gophers, and now I've begun to put plastic underneath too, and just fill the beds with clean compost, to keep bermuda from creeping up into them from beneath.

I saw this thread and wanted to add my mostly successful experience of getting rid of Bermuda grass (BG). Some years ago, I had a small area completely overgrown with BG. On the internet there were only sad stories. Finally, I came across one snippet in a cover crop review on groworganic.com (Peaceful Valley Farm Supply), in which someone mentioned success using red cowpeas. I was stoked! I hired a strong guy to pick-axe, etc., the area with the BG. Then I spent several days painstakingly sorting through all that and removing all the BG I could. I mixed red cowpeas with a cover crop mix that had annual rye and sowed it VERY THICKLY across the whole area. From time to time for several years I would go through and pull any isolated BG snippets that were starting. I alternated cool weather cover crops and tomatoes with a woodchip pathway in summers. I finally transitioned to a permanent planting of California natives with a woodchip pathway. The woodchips were also helpful in keeping the BG sun-starved and weak.

There are a couple of edges where a few BG strands still survive--where the roots are below a concrete slab. I planted Lippia (Phyla nodiflora) a spreading low California native groundcover near one such area, and after few years, the BG has disappeared from that spot.

It was really a successful strategy, starting from the first year of the red cowpeas treatment. It's been maybe 5 or 6 years, and there's only a couple of those concrete edge spots still minimally active. I patrol the area every year, but it's been awhile since I've seen any BG anywhere except those edge spots. In writing this post, I realized I should plant Lippia near the other infested edge spots and see if that will smother it.