"mbwest" wrote in message
...

Good Morning,

My problem is: I am hoping to plant some grass and grow a good looking
even lawn but previously the soil had rock cemented over it and over
the years and after removing the cemented rock many small rocks have
been mixed into the soil it also contain many pieces of small plastic,
glass and metal. What is the quickest way to get rid of this? They
aren't big rocks that you can pick up in handfulls, they are mainly
small and mixed in with the earth, LOTS of rocks. Does it realy matter
as long as i get rid of most of it? any ideas?

Any help would be greatly appreciated, more details below...




18yrs old, first attempt at gardening, trying to turn a garden that
looks more like a forest/rubbish dump into a good looking garden.

I am a very new young gardener with a massive job on my hands. My great
aunt's garder has been left un-touched for about 4 years now apart from
a quick clear out about a year and a half ago, just flattening the
weeds. On return about a week ago i found weeds with gigantic roots,
average height of the weeds were about 6ft and the garden looked more
like a forest. I managed to flatten most of it in about an hour or 2
although the 'tree-looking' weeds took longer, still digging a few i
left in. Have now diverted my attention to lifting up all the rock
slates as i feel it will be easier to just work my way through the
whole lawn with these out the way and have managed to lift all the
rocks up. The garden is about 20x5 meters. I have also just used 3
sachets of weedol2 weedkiller on the soil area (14x5) which is atleast
4x the amount i was supposed to as it just seemed to pour out too fast,
next time ill use a lower concentration.
Anyway the plan is to turn this garden/forest into something that i can
relax in. I am hoping to lay lawn on the top level soil (14x5 area),
build a shed from scratch, build a rockery, cement new brick for the
few steps, cement a wall on the lower ground to section off a small
area about (.5x6) in which to grow veg or anything else i decide to and
section off an area on the top lawn (.5x14) so i have a specific area to
grow mainly flowers. Hmm what else. Also a seating area made of the
rocks i take up about .5m out from the corner of the wall. Also
thinking of installing a water feature in the middle, although I may
have to settle for the bird bath i allready have. I am also hoping to
install or build a barbeque and 4 hooks at the top of the garden tied
to trees above on which i can suspend a waterproof sheet when needed.

So anyway it sounds massive but it's mostly for fun and im enjoying it.
I mainly used a metal stick to demolish most of the weeds but am
obviously now digging them up. I am 18years old and this is my first
attempt at any real gardening.

What i am thinking is i will keep people on forums upto date on my
progress (I have pictures if you wish to see) and if anyone cares or
can be bothered to read it maybe they can give me tips along the way.

Anyway next steps are ripping up the rest of the cemented rocks,
digging up any rubbish and weeds in the lawn and trying to lay some
grass if i haven't contaminated the lawn with way too much weedkiller.
With regards to laying the grass, once the soil is as clean as i can
get it i am going to simply rake it, spread to the seeds (left to
right, top to bottom) and rake it again and cross my fingers, any ideas
on anything would be great.

Thanks again,

Oh, I am also painting an old bench, rigging up a washing line to my
room on the 1st floor and possibly building a table.


--
mbwest


Go to a DIY store like Focus they sell sheets of 1/4 inch mesh about 2ft 6
by 3ft 6 and cost about £4

Make a solid tray frame work to attach this to using 4x1 timbers 2 of 2ft 6
length for short ends

and 2 pieces of timber 4ft 6 in for sides ( ie 1 ft extra for handles )

Thus making a large sieve with 2 handles that fits neatly on top of a
wheelbarrow

Then you can seive your soil to your hearts content to filter out the stones
etc

Later you can use the seive for screening compost etc