where my plot was so overgrown i have lots of weedy, grassy sods that have little free earth on em. what do you do with em?
Its difficult to know what to do isnt it? ???
We have compst bins that are collected fortnightly by the council and are very useful indeed, but you are not allowed to put soil or turf in it, i suppose because it gets very heavy.
So yesterday my other half and i dug up a small area of turf as i wanted to make a nice feature with some cornish cobbles.
For such a small area i cant tell you how much turf we had that needed getting rid of. :o
Much to his annoyance i got him to put it in the boot of his car and drive to the local tip with it.
Hi Larry,
I piled mine up into a heap and this year I`m growing, pumpkins on it.
Col
do the pumpkins not mind the grass? does the pile have an advantage in it for growing em - i'd love to grow pumpkins
I don't have a sensible answer, but I love the question - it is exactly the kind of problem that almost everyone has but no gardening programme of book addresses it?
You could be very trendy and make a grass sculpture - shape the spare earth into a seat or circle and then turf it??
no need to turf it - weed it maybe, but so long as your not fussy about the roughness of grass, there's plenty of that!
I always thought that if you piled them up, earth uppermost, they would rot down a lot quicker. This is what I have done with unwanted turf in the past, when we've made the borders bigger and the lawn smaller!
MM
Good question, we had our Lottie so called sprayed and rotovated, now each time I dig a spades depth I bring up these sods. Maybe I could build a grass/mud hut with it grrrr! >:(
ha!
i have just put 4 rows of spuds into my newly expensively rotovated and 'graded'(whatever that is..)lottie garden...and i dug up what appeared to be an upside down world of turves and couch grass and an unknown root almost as big as a mans leg!!!!!!!!!
well..
okay..
maybe not that big-but big enough!
luckily i live next door to a field...
cant think where those turves have gone.....
ahem!
*kitty wanders off nonchalantly......*
;D
You can put it grass side down in the bottom of raised beds. Or compost it in your compost bin, or grass side down to rot down somewhere you can't see it or put weed killer on it and it turns back into soil. I wouldn't throw it away as the top spit of the soil is the best bit. I can't bare to chuck soil away it just doesn't seem right - well not if it looks good stuff :)
Spot the Ziggurat of t-UR-f :) in the background!
http://www.keirg.freeserve.co.uk/diary/photos/05_apr/plot.jpg
Won't give me soil this winter, I don't expect - but next year, all that lovely soil to go back on to my beds.
Look around your site - if it's anything like ones I've been on, there are loads of plots where the soil level is 4-6 inches BELOW the surface "path" level. All that wonderful, rich, fertile soil - carted away and dumped.
Don't throw the turf away - you'll raise your soil level by 6 inches by composting it and putting it back later.
Just a thought - all best, Gavin
What I do (when I have the space) is to dig the turf/clumps up and turn them over - leave them on the top for several weeks (obviously doesn't work if you need to use the space). The green bits tend to rot away and the dirt/roots is dried by the sun or washed out by the rain. You are then left with clumps of roots that have dried out and stand no chance of re-growing ... so I collect these up and bung them on the compost heap.
We have the same problem- started double digging and as we dug we put the grass at the bottom (taking out dandelion roots etc) and buried it under a layer of soil. Took too much time though and was back breaking.
What were doing now is taking up as thin a layer as possible and composting it, then digging it over and weeding as we go along. Where possible though we are covering with black bags to kill weeds so we can dig properly when the weeds and grass are dead.
One chap at our site got his plot last year and composted the turf and he said his has composted down really well.
Hi all,
My heap from last year was mostly made of the top layer of turves from the previously neglected plot and anything else I could compost. I initially aligned it to the sun and carpeted it so it would get as hot as possible. In the winter I shaped it to fit the space I wanted to use and gave it terraces and a flat top. Then I coverered in about a foot of fallen leaves and put a tarpaulin over it. A few weeks ago I took the tarpaulin off and let the weeds grow then I sprayed those with roundup. Now its a heap of soil, mostly weed free. I was lucky enough to get some pallets and started a new compost heap.
In a few weeks I will plant three sisters on and around it.
(ie. Sweetcorn, Beans and Pumpkins) After that I guess I will put the soil back where it came from and prepare a new terraced heap ready for next year.
So, in answer to, "What about the grass?" The grass never grew back and for other weeds I cheated as I used Roundup.
Col
Mostly I just turn it in a spit deep, otherwise I stack mine. Green to green with some extra lawn clippings -if it's turves- any old how if it's clumps. Cover it with black plastic to stop the weeds growing and keep it moist.
Gavin's right about losing soil, my plots several inches too low, only a spit of soil in some places, because the previous owners just chucked the lumps over the fence -but now I've annexed the sudetenland and it will be coming back!
Jeremy
i hate it when i go down to the rubbish tip and see loads of lovely turf in the hardcore bin. If i could i'd get a load of it, i'd pile it high the length of me (sorry my) plot, cover it in black plastic, leave for 1 or 2 years and then wow soooo much lovely top soil to go on my presently 1 spit deep plot. what do you lot dream about at 12.45am?!?!
My OH used to chuck soil away in the days when he didn't know any better but now he's seen the light and I don't have to keep watching over him to make sure he doesn't sneak any over the wall ;D