How to Pull up Weeds & Put Down Top Soil & Seeds

Pulling Weeds

• 1

  Use your shovel to dig up one of the weeds and the dirt around its root system. Break the soil away from the roots with your fingers and examine them. If the plant has a single large root beneath the stem, it grows a taproot. If it has many roots that spread out from the base, it has a fibrous root system.

• 2

  Remove weeds that have a taproot by pushing your fingers into the soil around the taproot and grasping it. Pull the weed out of the ground by the taproot with a smooth twisting motion, and dispose of it in a trash bag. Repeat this process for the other taproot-bearing weeds in your bed.

• 3

  Grasp weeds with a fibrous root system by the foliage at the base of the plant and pull the plant up. Wiggle your fingers through the dirt clinging to the roots to knock it loose and dispose of it in a trash bag. Repeat this process for all of the remaining weeds in your bed.

Adding Topsoil

• 4

  Put down your plastic sheet at a convenient place near your garden bed, and shift your topsoil on to the sheet. Check the topsoil for any rocks, sticks or trash and remove them.

• 5

  Spread your topsoil evenly over the garden bed until it is about two inches deep throughout your garden. Run the rototiller over your garden to mix the topsoil into the upper two inches of your garden bed.

• 6

  Spread the rest of your topsoil over the surface of your garden bed. Use enough topsoil to add at least another two inches of topsoil over the entire area of your garden.

Planting Seeds

• 7

  Set wooden stakes into the ground on opposite sides of the bed to mark your planting rows. Run a string between each pair of stakes to mark the middle of each row. Make sure to leave enough space between rows to accommodate the plants that will grow there.

• 8

  Use the handle of your shovel to create a furrowed line in the soil roughly two inches deep beneath each string. Drop your seeds into the furrowed soil with enough space between each seed to prevent competition when the seeds grow into mature plants.

• 9

  Drag the blade of your shovel over the soil beside each furrow to push soil over the seeds. Do press down on the shovel or step on the rows after the seeds are planted; instead, lightly tamp the loose soil down over the seeds using your shovel.