Having flared up an old back injury, the digging of this new veg garden has, for the moment got the better of me, but where there is a will there is a way and there is always more than one solution to a problem. You don't get to my time of life withouit finding that out. But at the present moment I have to admit that it seems to be one of those days that whatever can go wrong is going wrong. So okay, I will concede that I have lost this particular battle to dig this lawn up without any help, mechanical or chemical. So I have decided to change tactics, because I may have lost the battle but I have definitely NOT lost the war, far from it, so a little sideways thinking is called for. The bggest problem I think is that the ground is so heavy and wet and this is what is straining my back, let alone the millions of couch  grass roots that are all entwined with each other, so I have decided to douse the entire lawn with systemic weedkiller, if I have to use more than one weedkiller to kill all this grass off then I will do. When everything is dead then I intend to cut it down as far as it can go. Summer is coming and for once I intend to make the weather work in my favour, because by killing the grass off then cutting it down it will help the lawn to dry out and the systemic will get to work on those roots as well, and while it might not kill them completely ( it rarely does) it will cause them to loosen their grip on the soil making them easier to dig up, or that's the theory anyway. Better than me ending up back  in Pinderfields A&E Department with another collapsed muscle and my back in spasm again. But if anyone has any better ideas could you please let me know? All suggestions are more than welcome.