ROTTING SKIMMED SOIL

[Fingle....]

We have 2 big piles of earth we skimmed from our plots to deal with the grass problem.
Does anyone know how long it takes under black plastic, before it has all rotted down and is useable without fear of grass coming back to life ??

[Fingle....]

[trevody]

Minimum of two years to kill off most weeds, you could always cover it with an old carpet and grow pumpkins in it etc. ;D

[Fingle....]

jeeeeesus

:o

[legless]

i saw the title and thought 'ooh that's a good idea' - but maybe not! :o

[derbex]

Bit late now :) but,  if it was just 'normal' grass without too much else in it you can turn it in -basically just dig up a block and turn it upside down burying it.

I did three beds on our lawn, skimmed one, buried one in blocks and roughly turned in the last. They were all mulched and a couple of years later they are all fairly weed free, and have been from the start.

If there are nettles &c. then this won't work.

The skimmed pile I made from one bed still doesn't look too use-able, I don't think I got it, or kept it, damp enough.

Jeremy

[rdak]

This relates to something I'm reading in a book- 'Lazy Kitchen Gardener' by John Yeoman. He shows a way of creating a 'Lazy Sod' bed  ;D

He says it's suitable for an allotment that hasn't been cultivated and it covered in grass. The instructions are to mark out a 6 foot wide bed (length up to you). Cut all the weeds & grass down to ground level and leave them there. Add a 6 inch layer of kitchen waste (that's a lot of kitchen waste! would need to get that from a restaurant or market I think) and then around the perimeter, cut a 2 foot wide, 2 inch thick piece of turf around the sides and fold up to form a side of the bed, like a hinge. then cover the bed with some soil, dug out from the 2 foot path that now surrounds the 4 foot bed and cover with several layers of newspaper as a mulch.

has anyone here got the John Yeoman book and/or tried this?

[aquilegia]

Ross - maybe I'm really lazy, but that sounds like blooming hard work to me, not 'lazy gardening' at all!

[rdak]

sounds a lot of work, but he says that if you have access to all the kitchen waste ready, he thinks he could do a 40 foot allotment in one day! where does someone get that much kitchen waste from though?!

[derbex]

I am sort of following this with one or more of my beds, using garden compost rather than mushroom as I'm tight.


http://www.permaculture.co.uk/mag/Articles/Cardboard_Revolution.html

[Fingle....]

That looks like hard work !!

I think a bit of weeding once a week is easier

[derbex]

It saves you digging the bed over in the first place (and yearly) though, compared to that it's easy. You also save some on the weeding -although some thistles still get through and you have to top up the mulch so it's swings and roundabouts there.

Jeremy

[aquilegia]

And is of course utterly useless if you have heavy, stony clay soil.

[Tall Trees]

I am giving the following a try on my new allotment.

Strim the grass/weeds/thistles to ground level.

Mark out the bed.

Cut the turf off nice and thick making the strip the width of a spade and continue this until each bed is stripped back to bare earth.

I then stack all the turf, grass side down to form walls for compost bins.

I have currently found that the walls are self supporting to 4 feet no problem.

The beds that were dug in are terrible and grass and weeds are back in days.  The stripped beds are virtually weed free and i now have big free compost bays.

TT

[Fingle....]

Thats what we have done !!
Well, apart from building the compost bin from the tops (as we already have one) I now have 2 big piles of grassy earth which i need to do something with. Currently they are covered in Plastic and doing nothing, taking up space and looking ugly.

I dont want to wait 2 years for it to rot !!!!

Any ideas ?

[gillianbc]

I put some moist turf in black plastic bags last year as I had nowhere else to store it. It is lovely crumbly soft earth now with no trace of weeds.  

[Fingle....]

Now that i can handle !

[kenkew]

I created a new bed for extra spuds about a month ago. The turf I've put into black bags. I started a another new area for leeks, again, binning the turf sods. The amount of perennial weeds is staggering.

[carloso]

old gadge (bloke,man) next to my brimming over new allotment site, not touched for 2 yrs lol says " go on lad put ya back into it skim off top sod and turn over soil upwards !" now i started to do this excellent i thought until 20ft by 10ft later couldnt stand up !

neighbour tother side of me says hang on a minute son !! stay right where you are ill get my lad to help you!
30mind later man's son arrives with Tractoer and rotovator attached !!!

IF THAT AINT EASY WHAT BLOODY WELL IS !!!!!!!

GET THE GADGE'S SON TO GET A BLOODY TRACTOR !!!!

YOOOOOO Wheres my beerrrrrrr  lol B  E  A UITFUL!!!!!!