Nicely done X! I'll have to convince my clay soil and rocks that "It’s ridiculously easy!" I'm going to give it a try.

Lea

The clay will succumb easily - I used to live in Tidewater Virginia area .. not sure about the rocks though.

Great tip but do use a pruning saw old instead of knife which can snap and do harm.
Regards,
Arif.

Love this tip. I will use it when we put in our new beds.

Thanks! It's really great for creating scalloped edges or odd shaped beds .. if you're careful and cut the grass into rectangles you can roll it up and put it where you need more grass.

Thank you!
I am going to give this tip a try!

Although I am wondering if the bermuda grass will creep back into the bed, but that's a whole other problem!!

Wow, what a great idea! Thanks for sharing this wonderful tip X!

By the way ... I love your idea of ladder trellises for Morning Glories; would love to see a photo of the finished project which I bet is going to be beautiful!

"Perfect" looking soil there... I might suggest a drywall saw, or knife. It's a tough thick thing, up to pushing rocks out of the way. Thanks for the article!

Thanks .. in the past I've found that using a saw blade with toothed instead of serrated edges get caught in the grass making it harder to "saw" through it. In all the years I've been using the bread knife I've never had one break on me - ever.

For really large areas, I actually use an electric knife to cut under the grass after the initial cuts. You just don't want to be using an electric knife in a really wet area.

Cool!

But how the heck do you trim the grass around all those small bordered beds? That's the tip I'm REALLY waiting for now!

With a weed whacker or scissors if the weed whacker is broken and I'm desperate.

We used a weed whacker, then I painted the grass right along the edge of the bed with Round-up. That lasted almost the entire summer. Sure saved me a lot of extra work, I would have to cover the beds with old sheets to keep the weed whacker from throwing grass in the beds.

That's about the easiest idea for creating a "mowing strip" that I've ever heard, Lynn! You need to write it up as a tip on its own!

There's a lot of creativity in this group, for sure.

I've never used weed killer before, but getting older and not being able to work at garden as hard as I did in the past, has made me change my mind on how to control the grass around the beds.

I don't have any grass, but do use my bread knife for lots of other things around the garden. It's great for trimming the jasmine groundcover along my walkways. As X says, it makes nice straight clean cuts. Also good for digging small transplant holes if my trowel is not handy. Works for pruning and weeding in a pinch, too.

Any serrated knife will do - pruning saw, drywall saw, or I scored a set of cheap steak knives ($4 for a set of 6) like what they have at steak houses, that are very sturdy and serrated. They work great, and I leave them strategically situated around the garden so there's always one at hand.

Hmmm .. mowing strip .. never thought of it .. I'm thinking I might try that out! Thanks for the tip!

I'm not so sure I'd like to use my favourite bread knife for this, but a cheap one might work. Or the Lee Valley root knife which I have and find invaluable around the garden - http://www.leevalley.com/US/ga...

Ann thank you for that link, what a great tool. Heading to the hardware store to see if they have them. That would be perfect for edging.

I really like the rugged "Soil Knife" from AM Leonard (especially since they have a stainless steel version). I don't know if it would be as good for precision work, but it's sturdy enough to divide huge clumps of DLs or hostas.

DH had a set of "eversharp" knives when we got married... we replaced them for kitchen work after I nicknamed them "never sharp," but they're great for abusing in the garden... tougher than I'd thought they'd be, and sharp enough for most non-cooking jobs.