For larger plots, black plastic can be placed atop grass for a few months to kill off vegetation. When it’s time to plant, simply rake the bare soil clear.
BY RODNEY WILSON
When my wife and I moved our family back to Kentucky to start a sustainable farming operation in the wild and rugged outskirts of Franklin County, our plan was simple: We’d raise chickens, pigs and cattle on pasture, and a large market garden would supply us (and, eventually — hopefully — our neighbors) with fresh, organically raised produce. We ended up doing much of this, raising meat and layer chickens, establishing a pork-breeding program and, for a while, caring for a pair of black Dexter cows. But before any of that, and within days of moving into a Civil Warera farmhouse, we mapped a 10,000-square-foot piece of grass behind the house, pulled out the tiller and proceeded to tear things up.