Topic: Builders sand

[cambourne7]

Hi All,

Well we relaid the patio at the weekend and finished 30 min before the rain hit :) Leaving the patio till the weekend to settle now before adding the mortor and the edging bits.

However i have 2 problems

Husband piled the sand from the patio when they were pulling it up onto my soil  -  do i need to all the sand from the soil before i use it?

And i have 1/2 a ton of sand left :( no idea what to do with it only option at the moment is to bag it up and move it in smaller bits into the corner of the garden away from where i am planting.

My understanding that builders sand is not just sand its got other stuff in it which is not good for planting.

Cam

[lincsyokel2]

If its just sand then theres nothing wrong with it. You can grow stuff in sand (otherwise all the plants on the tops of the dunes round the coast wouldn't be there).  The snag with sand is it has no nutrients.

However, thats useful in some cases, you can use it to make seed compost.

JI Seed Compost:
2 parts by bulk medium loam
1 part by bulk peat
1 part by bulk coarse sand

JI Potting Compost:
7 parts by bulk medium loam
3 parts by bulk peat
2 parts by bulk coarse sand (I've found this as 1 part and 2 part, must check)

JI Base Fertiliser:
2 parts by weight hoof and horn
2 parts by weight superphosphate of lime
1 part by weight sulphate of potash

JI Potting Mixes:
To make JI 1 add 4ozs JI Base and ¾oz ground limestone to a bushel of JI Potting Compost.
To make JI2 double the base, JI 3 treble the base
To make JI Seed add 1½ozs superphosphate of lime and ¾oz ground limestone to a bushel of mix.

[cambourne7]

many thanks for that i though builders sand had lime in and was not to be used in the garden but if you think its ok i will dig a bit onto my clay soil to help break it down :) I suppose if it does have lime in it might be a good idea to dig into my brassica bed :)

[rugbypost]

Hi builders sand is washed sand that has bee)n dredged from the sea bed it is clean with no lime put a little on your clay soil for that extra dranage but you need to add plenty of organic , (manure )to the soil bag the rest of the sand and keep for something else ; ;D

[lincsyokel2]

many thanks for that i though builders sand had lime in and was not to be used in the garden but if you think its ok i will dig a bit onto my clay soil to help break it down :) I suppose if it does have lime in it might be a good idea to dig into my brassica bed :)

I think its unlikely it has lime in. Sand and lime form a mortar that sets, that what they used to use for bricklaying before cement was invented in the 1920's.  So if it did have lime in, you would know because it would set fairlystiffly on drying out after the application of some water.

So the question is, did you buy patio mortar or builders sand ?

[cambourne7]

most def a ton of builders sand to add cement to so we can lay the patio :)

[lincsyokel2]

Right so its sand not premixed mortar.

so use it as previously described. You might want to test the pH of it before you start just in case.

[Unwashed]

Builders' sand - pit sand - is just dug out of the quary, nothing added, nothing taken away.  It won't have lime in it.

Lime used by builders to make mortar is hydrated calcium oxide - that's limestone baken in a lime kiln and than slaked.  It's caustic and not really what you want to put on the garden.

Garden lime is limestone (of one kind or another), and it's broken down reasonably slowly by the weather and soil bacteria.

Sharp sand is really what you want to improve drainage as its grain size is larger, but pit sand isn't going to do any harm if it's well mixed in.

[cambourne7]

thanks again everyone.

I am going to give a bag of sand to the guys when they come to rotovate the area and put down the lawn so the sand can be rotovated in :) We have 3 more rows of slabs left and what sand is left which i guess will be just over 1/4 of a ton i will dig into the rest of the garden over time.

[pumkinlover]

Carrots ;)

[cambourne7]

hahaha yes might try that :)

[saddad]

I use a thin layer on my drills of small seedlings as the clay tends to cap... it helps germination and you can tell if it's dry as it changes colour... a small sheet of glass over the top helps stop it drying out to quickly... but that's quite a lot to bag up!  :-X