[Cajun_gardens]

the best thing to do is to rent a sod remover machine thingy and cut off all the sod. then till it.

Here where I live (im not one to use this method) some people simply burn the grass down with diesel fuel and a match or roundup.

I - chose to rent one of those hydraulic tillers and attempted to cut through the st augustine grass ... nope. i ended up using a spade and cutting it all out by hand and then building a raised garden bed on top of the area I tilled after removing the sod and hauled in 11 cubic yards of premium compost/garden soil.

i've been taught that ideally you need 9-12" of good soil with adequate drainage to grow good tomato plants. Thats not to say there aren't exceptions though.

One of the previous posters mentioned making furrows with the tilled soil which would work. build a raised bed 3 or 4 landscaping timbers high ... leave enough room to walk/mow between each raised bed .. grow glorious tomatoes .. and be done.

BTW ..the 8' landscaping timbers are around $3 each.

might end up being much easier on your body in comparison to breaking up new ground with an obviously underpowered and undersized tiller.

Or .. you could have someone with a real tractor come and actually plow your sod (which ive seen done too). it takes about 3 minutes.