MAB,

We made our 2 planks high raised bed last April and lucky for us, it was very sunny.

I think my DH put up the planks even before digging up the lawn. Once he was finished, I dug out chunks of grass (with soil still attached underneath) and left them there to dry out a bit (didn't use weedkiller because I wanted to work the grass by hand). When they were a little dead looking, I shook all the soil from the roots of the chunks of grass and threw them into the bonfire pile. I even bashed them onto the planks to shake off the soil thoroughly.

It was a bit tedious way and time consuming but I wanted to have neat looking soil although I did leave a few chunks of grass behind as I got lazier towards the end. This method was fine for my situation because I had tons and tons of homemade compost that more than covered the full height of the raised bed (ended with a big pile in the centre).

Sometime when I dig, I come across these grass bits that have rotted down well so I don't think they're such a big problem. Also I think it's very easy to pull weeds on a heavily composted soil that tends to be loose so weeding is a breeze.

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