The Fridley Farmer : Cutting and Planting Sod
At some point the previous owners of our house had a garden. We are expanding it from 12×25 feet to 25×25 feet. I was going to rent a rototiller to break it all up, then I realized that the new garden area has good growing grass on it and that I could use that grass in front of the patio we made last year which is still surrounded by dirt.
So instead of a quick trip with the tiller I get to spend some quality time cutting sod. Below you can see I have a measly 3×12 foot section cut so far. I think it’ll take another 3 hours to cut and move the rest.
From the corner closest to the bottom of the picture to the fence is 25 feet. From that point up to just before the telephone pole is 25 feet.
Above is the patio and stairs that we made last year. We got all the bricks from Craigslist and Freecycle for free. Before we put in the patio there was a dingy rotting deck. Under the deck was mostly bare dirt, a two food wide swath of gravel around the edges and a bare pvc pipe that the sump pump dumped out of (just to the surface
I dug a 5 foot deep 4 foot diameter hole and filled it with the gravel to use as a dry well. I then buried the sump output pipe so it now spits out into the gravel filled hole. That got rid of most of the gravel, but we still didn’t have grass. The sod I will be moving won’t completely fill the area, but it will be a good start.
Cutting Sod
I don’t know if this is the right way to cut sod, but it has been working well so far. I have just been digging straight down with the shovel, then prying back. I do that in a straight line across the 12 foot wide area I am clearing. I then do the same thing again two shovel widths away. I then cut the sod horizontally into about 18 inch wide strips — determined by how much I can easily pick up at once. With the sod cut like that it tears out pretty easily, about as tough as pulling duct tape off a floor.
Planting Sod
The area we wanted the sod was already bare dirt. Once I saw how thick the sod was, I shoveled down the dirt so that the sod would be level with the edge of the patio. I then raked the surface up so that the dirt wasn’t all compacted and so hopefully the sod can take root more easily. After placing the sod, I gave it a good watering and will continue to do so any time the dirt around the edges starts to dry out until it is established.
Finished
Here’s a picture with all the sod in, about a week after the original post. There was enough to come straight down to the existing grass, and part way around the side. We’ll have to figure something else out for the rest of the dirt area, like maybe buying some grass seed. You can see that the lumpiness is slowly disappearing as compared to the picture from the day I put the first sod down.
