Replacing lawn with veg patch - advice

Magpye

Our house has a small lawn at the back (about 3x6 meters) which is full of moss, dandelions and thistles, with a very small amount of fine grass and rather more coarse grass. We want to take it all out and set it up with vegetable beds.

I'm in the process of digging out the dandelions and thistles (hard work) but I'm having trouble getting the grass to come up - the moss is so thick, it's like trying to get through a brillo pad with a butter-knife.

What's the best way to lift the grass and kill off any remaining weeds without using chemicals? Bear in mind I will be doing this by myself and by hand I must be mad!

Fern_Merkin

Hiya Magpye!

I Helped my sister remove a bad lawn last year, learned a few things

• If you can, get help. Offer food you can prepare the day before, make it a party!. Trust me, this a labour intensive. Most none chemical answers are.
• Anyway, start at one end. Using a sharp spade, cut a groove about 6 inches deep all down one end/side
• cut a very similar groove 6-8 inches further on
• Cut the length created into 6-8 inch sections *
• remove using spade.
• Continue til finished

* You can make the sections larger, but only early on

Like I say, point 1 is important

What you will be left with will be a bit poor. Long Fork it about remove weed roots and then add any compost, leaf mold, roughage you can to improve texture.

The point of doing it as suggested is that you can get rid of ALL the weeds as you go. (pretty much) Not wasting energy on spot digging when you want the lot done.

Realistically, doing it this way will allow you to sow stuff about June/July onwards this year, but a clear area means all next year to do what you like, with all your space. Gardening’s all about the future after all

Stack the ‘useless sods’ recovered from above process face down in first row then stack alternately but don’t leave em grass up on top row. They will rot down nicely into something you can use on your veg patch surprisingly soon.

Best of luck!

FX

Magpye

Thank you Fern - I have lots of stuff in pots at the moment but want a 'proper' garden! I lifted a thistle yesterday that was 2 foot across, as it kept catching my ankle :rolleyes: but I will have a go cutting the grass out as suggested, it may be easier.

Suzy_M

If you've got space to leave it for a while the turf will make very good compost. I can't remember the exact process but -

Pull the really offensive (dandelion, thistle etc) weed roots out of each clod and stack - preferably in a sunny spot to aid the composting process. Water each layer as you go, cover the pile to keep light out and leave to 'mature'. It's a slow process but it does make superb fine compost.

withabix

Personally I'd go for the chemical approach myself

A good dose of Roundup Biactive if you can find it.

Let it all die off and then clear the area.

Dave2112

Hi all

been thinking about replacing my rear lawn for a while as it's well past is best (moss) and thoughts turned to digging it up and replacing it with a veg patch. Basically the garden is a rectangle with shrubs in the borders. Current plan is to keep these borders and dig up sections of the lawn and put in slightly raised beds. The "path" between the raised beds would be the old lawn and be wide enough to run the mower along. In this way I could grow veg and if I ever sell the house it would be easy to revert to a lawn as I'm guessing prospective purchasers would prefer a lawn.

So, any thoughts? and also any links to what I should grow and when? Would start small and then expand if it goes well.

tks

2cats1kid

I'm thinking along the same lines, only even lazier. I'm thinking if your raised beds were deep enough you wouldn't need to dig the lawn, just plonk the bed on the top. In fact in one garden that I can see from my bedroom window they haven't even done that - just got big laundry bags, plastic crates etc. and plonked them on the lawn! Not very aesthetically pleasing, it has to be said.

This site http://www.rhs.org.uk/vegetables/calendar/calendarjul.asp has what to plant and do when advice.

olly300

Dave2112 wrote: »

In this way I could grow veg and if I ever sell the house it would be easy to revert to a lawn as I'm guessing prospective purchasers would prefer a lawn.

So, any thoughts? and also any links to what I should grow and when? Would start small and then expand if it goes well.

tks

Not necessarily. Depending how long you stay in your house, the economy when you sell it and the amount of rainfall you have , your purchasers may not want a lawn at all.

MichH

We did this last year, although we completely removed the lawn and gravelled in between the raised beds.

It was very money saving, unfortunately, so we had to save up for quite a long time prior to our 'gardening project'.

We hired a machine (sorry cant remember the name) to remove the top layer of the lawn, it was very hard work pushing the machine but much easier than doing it by hand with a spade. After that we put in three raised beds using railway sleepers, we bought new ones from a sustainable source rather than buying recycled ones that had chemicals in them because of us using them for veg.

So no more grass cutting as we have gravel, and I now spend alot of time out there just pottering about in the veg patch. Well worth all the effort and money spent. :j

NorthWest-Lass

Hi everyone, a comlete newbie here, my husband is making two 4 x 4 raised beds for me to grow veg. I'm thinking of putting potatoes in one but would welcome any advise for the second, also any 'reading' anyone can recommend. I have very little idea when to plant what. Thanks in advance.

olly300

NorthWest-Lass wrote: »

Hi everyone, a comlete newbie here, my husband is making two 4 x 4 raised beds for me to grow veg. I'm thinking of putting potatoes in one but would welcome any advise for the second, also any 'reading' anyone can recommend. I have very little idea when to plant what. Thanks in advance.

Annie123 posts a monthly thread about what you should do in the garden each month. Do a search for her name in this board and the word "August".