Clearing up to make a veg area

Coveredinbees!!!!

A piece of our garden, which we plan to use as a veg patch has been under an old carpet and rubble for a number of years. As we now have a 9 month old daughter I thought it was time to sort it out. I have moved the rubble off but now I have another problem, the previous people put down loads of pea shingle which has now turned in to a mixture of pea shingle and soil. What should I do with shingle just dig it in to the soil or try to clear off as much as I can and dispose of it somehow?

Also there is a lot of ivy, bind weed and nettles I hoping to clear as much out by digging it over is there anything else I should try and do?

Thanks in advance, I'm not very green fingered.

Mankysteve

Get yourself a sieve.

amcluesent

>is there anything else I should try and do?<

Glyphosate the weeds. I'd just dig in the pea shingle as long as its no more than 10cm depth.

RebekahR

I had this issue when we moved in. The advertised veg patch was full of stones from pea shingle (they had a gravel area right next to it) and stones from all sizes up to massive bits of concrete. Took me 2-3 months to dig over! I started digging and removed the biggest weeds into a bag for the council and then dug more and more and then I dig down one spades depth and sieved this - took ages but very worth it. You shouldn't have to do this more than 2 yrs in row. Basically did it the first year - repeated 2nd year and this year I started but realised the stones were so small - and you need some for drainage - so didn't bother with the sieving and only the digging over this year. GL and take pictures as you go to motivate you ;-)

katholicos

The pea shingle would make good drainage if you fancied placing raised beds on top of it. The weeds would have to be pulled first if course and you could line raised beds with cardboard or weed control fabric to discourage weeds. I'm a raised bed gardener though, so that is what first comes to my mind if i were to be faced with te same dilemma.

Coveredinbees!!!!

Thanks, I think I will dig some gravel in and move some out to use it somewhere else. I'm not thinking of raise beds at the moment maybe later, I just want to get the area cleared. Had an argument with a 2 cubic foot lump of concrete tonight so felling knackered and pee'd off.
The patch is bigger than I thought as it's long but narrow at around 300 square feet so I think I need to divided it in to sections and do bit at a time.