"Emrys Davies" wrote
"Pam Moore" wrote in message
A friend of mine has taken on an allotment which has a lot of grass,
which has been cut.
An elderly allotmenteer told her to take off the turf, let it dry,
then burn it. This surely is sacrilege. I would stack it and let it
convert to loam. Leave it long enough and the weeds will die off or
can be sifted out. Isn't that how loam is made, in a turf stack?

The ideal thing for your friend to do is to dig the grass in and that
means turning the grass turfs, spade deep, upside down and then the
grass will rot and form a loam.

Except it's liable to be Couch Grass IME so needs letting grow a bit and
spraying with Roundup and leaving to die.
Digging out Couch is a full time job and well beyond most allotment
gardeners available time, and your friend would be well advised not to try
growing anything else in the mean time.
So get your friend to dig up some and see if it contains Couch or any other
perennial weeds, like Bind Weed and if so there is no realistic alternative
to weedkiller if they want to garden. Of course if they are prepared to
leave it for a season or two without growing anything they could cover it
with something.

--
Regards
Bob Hobden
just W. of London