Topic: composting turf

[sand]

We are about to move house and will have a lovely flat lawn to put over to fruit and veg. Never having this luxury before is it better to put the turf straight back into the soil upside down or stack the turf to rot down, if so what would speed the rotting.

Thanks
Sand

[tim]

We've just done the same. I suggest that you break it down before you put it on the beds. Otherwise it will smother things.

[Palustris]

A couple of things to bear in mind. If it is purely lawn grass without pernicious weeds like dandelions, dock, couch grass etc then you can do a lot with it. If those weeds are present then Round up before lifting. If you decide not to go down that route then you will have to remove the turf and stack it somewhere, grass to grass, soil to soil and cover with plastic or carpet or whatever and leave for a few years to become nice top soil. Don't believe the 'takes ayear to rot down brigade' some of ours is now 5 years old and only just becoming usable!
Next point, removing the turf means you are removing the most fertile part of the soil so you will have (ought?) to replace that fertility with something, manure, compost whatever.
If the grass was weedy you will have to carefully remove as much root as you possibly can of any weeds left in the soil.
If you weedkiller the when the 'grass' is completely dead you may dig it in to the soil or remove as you will.
If the turf is purely grass then as Tim says either dig it in broken up or remove and stack for the future.
Have fun!

[derbex]

I did a little test with the 3 beds I made out of lawn at home, part of which was that I skimmed the turf off 2 and just turned it in on the last. Doesn't seem to have made any difference either way that I can tell, the one with the turf is no more weedy than the other 2, it might be slightly more moisture retentive than the others, but it's difficult to tell.

I think moisture has a lot to do with the quickness that stacked turf becomes usable, my one year old turf stack is more usable than the 3 year old, and I put it down to the fact that it was damper when it went in (despite watering the 3 year old) and has stayed that way. It's still not that good yet though.

Jeremy

[wardy]

I've put some turfs in my compost bin to speed things up a bit.  Seems to be working even in this cold weather.  Admitted I didn't have many or would have stacked them.

I get your point Palustris about weedkilling it first which means you preserve the most fertile top spit

Good thread folks

[Palustris]

Always wondered why it is that stacked turf rots down into usable soil in no time and yet you can still see the layers in Roman turf walls 2000 years on!