Q: I'd like to widen a foundation bed this spring, and I read one of your articles about using newspaper to smother the grass. How do I go about doing that? Or is there a better way to get the new bed ready to plant?
A: I'd pick one of the following two options.
The newspaper approach is good if your soil isn't too bad. Put about 6 sheets of newspaper down (especially the part with my garden column in it since it's especially high in manure content), then top it with 2 inches of mulch.
In a few months, the grass is dead and decaying underneath. Then you can pull back the mulch, dig your holes and plant. The advantage of this one is that you don't have to do any sod-removing.
The second approach is better if you want to plant right away and/or have lousy soil that needs to be improved with compost. Assuming your soil is typical "builder's soil," this is the approach I'd go with.
Use a hose or rope to mark the new bed line, then dig out the sod, piece by piece. I bang the pieces together to get out what soil I can. Then when the soil is stripped bare, till or dig the existing "soil" to 10 or 12 inches and then work about 2 inches of compost or mushroom soil into it. Then rake, plant and mulch. It's more work but the soil comes out in good shape and the results are instant.
If you want, you can lay newspaper over the bare soil between the plants and mulch on top of it.
I've also turned the sod pieces over (root side up) and used those between the plants with mulch on top. The pieces won't reroot upside down, and they break down in place to add organic matter. They also help control weeds and give you something better to do with the pieces than just throw them away. (I also sometimes compost dug-up sod.)