The message
from Steve Fitton contains these words:


You haven't said where you are (in the UK), what elevation above
sealevel, and which way the garden faces.(North /south, sunny/shaded)
That would be helpful before we all launch into plant suggestions.

Janet

Thanks Janet.

Location is north of Manchetser, elevation maybe 300 feet above sea
level and south facing. My ideal is a more controlled garden than,
say, wild flower meadow -

Wildflower meadows require annual hay-cutting and removal, which
would be difficult on 5 acres at 30 degrees slope..so I wouldn't even
contenplate that. But a slope, tilted to the south, is brilliant for
other plantings.


the big problem is not so much it being a
rockey scree - the 'rocky' bit consists of anything from lumps of
concrete to old acrington brick, with occasional large pockets of cola
slag / ash and clinker....

What the eye doesn't see the heart doesn't grieve. That composition
below the surface means "good drainage".. a great combination with the
southfacing slope.

My real ideal would be find a way of putting veg onto parts of this -

Now, there you may have a problem. Some old industrial spoilheaps are
so heavily contaminated with heavy metals, chemicals etc they may never
be suitable for growing food crops on. The only way to tell, would be
A) some serious reseaerch into who made the heap, from what, when; or a
professional soil analysis.

Other than food-production, you have great conditions for growing
lots of great sun-loving plants from drier climates than the UK. Many
of them positively thrive in rocky-thin-uneven soils, I recommend
asling for a book called "The gravel Garden" by Beth Chatto at your
local library, to see what possibilities lie before you.

One possibility (since you have a fair bit of land) is to approach
local environmental groups/college departments etc, and offer it as a
location for their work-parties/ assistance (or, university
soil/environmental research). This could bring some free expertise and
labour your way. Local environmental groups, and your local council
(environmental dept), should be able to advise you about grants
available for land reclamation /replanting/environmental improvements.
There's a pot of money out there for the tapping.

Resoiling 5 acres at a 30 degree slope (over membrane) is, in my
view, totally impractical without huge resources of money, machinery,
labour etc. You're talking about buying and distributing thousands of
tons of topsoil. Calculate the volume and cost--just for the soil..
from the site below.

I recommend you drop in at a landscaping website called www.paving
expert, run by an expert professional called Tony Mc Cormack who is very
close to you, and used to be an active memeber of this group. He will be
able to advise you about resoiling, membrane, terracing (safely) etc
(free, afaik)

Janet

"Janet Baraclough" wrote in message
...
The message
from Steve Fitton contains these words:


You haven't said where you are (in the UK), what elevation above
sealevel, and which way the garden faces.(North /south, sunny/shaded)
That would be helpful before we all launch into plant suggestions.

Janet

Thanks Janet.

Location is north of Manchetser, elevation maybe 300 feet above sea
level and south facing. My ideal is a more controlled garden than,
say, wild flower meadow -

Wildflower meadows require annual hay-cutting and removal, which
would be difficult on 5 acres at 30 degrees slope..so I wouldn't even
contenplate that. But a slope, tilted to the south, is brilliant for
other plantings.


the big problem is not so much it being a
rockey scree - the 'rocky' bit consists of anything from lumps of
concrete to old acrington brick, with occasional large pockets of cola
slag / ash and clinker....

What the eye doesn't see the heart doesn't grieve. That composition
below the surface means "good drainage".. a great combination with the
southfacing slope.

My real ideal would be find a way of putting veg onto parts of this -

Now, there you may have a problem. Some old industrial spoilheaps are
so heavily contaminated with heavy metals, chemicals etc they may never
be suitable for growing food crops on. The only way to tell, would be
A) some serious reseaerch into who made the heap, from what, when; or a
professional soil analysis.

Other than food-production, you have great conditions for growing
lots of great sun-loving plants from drier climates than the UK. Many
of them positively thrive in rocky-thin-uneven soils, I recommend
asling for a book called "The gravel Garden" by Beth Chatto at your
local library, to see what possibilities lie before you.

One possibility (since you have a fair bit of land) is to approach
local environmental groups/college departments etc, and offer it as a
location for their work-parties/ assistance (or, university
soil/environmental research). This could bring some free expertise and
labour your way. Local environmental groups, and your local council
(environmental dept), should be able to advise you about grants
available for land reclamation /replanting/environmental improvements.
There's a pot of money out there for the tapping.

Resoiling 5 acres at a 30 degree slope (over membrane) is, in my
view, totally impractical without huge resources of money, machinery,
labour etc. You're talking about buying and distributing thousands of
tons of topsoil. Calculate the volume and cost--just for the soil..
from the site below.

I recommend you drop in at a landscaping website called www.paving
expert, run by an expert professional called Tony Mc Cormack who is very
close to you, and used to be an active memeber of this group. He will be
able to advise you about resoiling, membrane, terracing (safely) etc
(free, afaik)

Janet

I think he is talking about 0.5 acres not a full 5 acres ?
Your comments are still relevant but he could do other things if he has
indeed got a half acre.

Janet Baraclough wrote:
Wildflower meadows require annual hay-cutting and removal, which
would be difficult on 5 acres at 30 degrees slope..

He only* has half an acre...his OP says .5 of an acre, still a lot to
manually double dig while removing skip after skip of rubble though.

*
only!

Fevets wrote:
Hope I might be able to get some ideas or recommendations...

I have patch of land around .5 acres, south facing and sloping at
around 35 degrees (going up from my property) to a height of around 30
feet to a hedge and substation the other side.

The land is composed of a rough soil mixed with bricks, coal ash /
clinker and stone. The only things growing are dandelions etc. The
depth of the waste appears to be at least 6 feet (I believe its from
an old mill clearance, bulldozed out of the way in the 80's to build
the houses), so clearance to 'real earth' is out of the question.

The land has had Japanese knotweed on it which has (after 4 years of
work, lots of weed killer and a large garden incinerator) been brought
under control, so clearance off site would not be practical given the
costs likely for disposal

So - my problem is how to develop the land to garden. At the moment my
thought is to terrace into levels and put a layer (12 inches ? 18
inches ???) of compost / soil and grow in that. I am really not sure
how to go about this - can anyone advise on the correct levels of
compost / soil I would need, depths to work to, or recommend any books
for developing a garden on what I suppose is a 'brown field site'.

Or for that matter, any other thoughts / ideas from the gardening
community on getting this land workable ?


I've avoided answering directly until now because I don't know enough about
gardening to comment, I do however specialise in excavations, mainly laying
drives, patios and small building projects.
As far as food crops are concerned, I would listen to the advice mentioned
by others WRT possible toxins in the soil, not neccesarily in the soil they
will be growing in, but also in the land surrounding them - considering
there is so much slope, anything nasty can easily wash down into the veg
patch without you knowing, this coupled with the graft involved might make
the whole food crop a waste of time and energy, not to mention
money.....perhaps you could set aside a concreted area for a greenhouse and
grow things in there like tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers and a few lettuce,
even strawberries or whatever you like, provided they are in growbags or
containers, if you do decide to make a veg plot, you will need to mark out a
patch and excavate it to at least 2ft, even then the drainage might be a
problem, as will loose rubble working it's way into the patch, I'd suggest
filling the whole thing with topsoil, you can work in manure and compost as
time goes on, alternatively, you could build raised beds, from the sound of
your land, you could build directly up off the rubble, porovided it was
fairly straight to begin with, simply take a sturdy rake and scratch out
where the boundaries are to be and test for level, to do this over a long
stretch, get a long piece of timber (3X2 or similar) and rest it on a brick
on edge where both boundaries are marked with a spirit level on top, once
the levels have been found, you can mix a fairly strong mix of sand / cement
and lay concrete blocks (around 75p each ) which cover 18 inches long by
about 9 high, two courses would probably be sufficient but you could go
three if you wanted a deeper veg patch, if you do go three high, they will
need to be allowed to set for at least a fortnight before filling, the
beauty of these types of beds is that you can use the entire bed, you don't
need paths because you can put a plank across from one retaining wall to the
other to pick / dig veg etc.

For the remainder of your garden I would suggest getting it level as
possible, or terracing it whichever you like, and hard landscaping most of
it, with either permanent (paving flags, block paving etc) or loose
materials like slate, gravel or anything you like, you could build small
beds here and there for planting out small shrubs etc and put planters of
all shapes and sizes on the rest, which is probably another reason to have a
greenhouse or two, for starting off seedlings and for overwintering
susceptible plants.

Another thing, with land such as this, it's an ongoing thing, once you've
put topsoil there doesn't mean it will stay there, you will need to top it
up as it washes away over the years, and I wouldn't attempt to do it all at
once, I'd start closest to the house and work away, get a decent sized
segment of it sorted out this year and leave the rest until next year or the
year after, you may decide by then that it's too much work, and to me it
certainly sounds it, without the help of forty navvies and some heavy
machinery.

HTH

The message
from "Rupert" contains these words:



I think he is talking about 0.5 acres not a full 5 acres ?
Your comments are still relevant but he could do other things if he has
indeed got a half acre.

You're right, sorry..I missed the dot! It's a half acre. Still a
gigantic amount required to re-soil it.

Janet

On Tue, 10 Jan 2006 22:53:27 -0000, "Rupert"
wrote:


"Janet Baraclough" wrote in message
...
The message
from Steve Fitton contains these words:


You haven't said where you are (in the UK), what elevation above
sealevel, and which way the garden faces.(North /south, sunny/shaded)
That would be helpful before we all launch into plant suggestions.

Janet

Thanks Janet.

Location is north of Manchetser, elevation maybe 300 feet above sea
level and south facing. My ideal is a more controlled garden than,
say, wild flower meadow -

Wildflower meadows require annual hay-cutting and removal, which
would be difficult on 5 acres at 30 degrees slope..so I wouldn't even
contenplate that. But a slope, tilted to the south, is brilliant for
other plantings.


the big problem is not so much it being a
rockey scree - the 'rocky' bit consists of anything from lumps of
concrete to old acrington brick, with occasional large pockets of cola
slag / ash and clinker....

What the eye doesn't see the heart doesn't grieve. That composition
below the surface means "good drainage".. a great combination with the
southfacing slope.

My real ideal would be find a way of putting veg onto parts of this -

Now, there you may have a problem. Some old industrial spoilheaps are
so heavily contaminated with heavy metals, chemicals etc they may never
be suitable for growing food crops on. The only way to tell, would be
A) some serious reseaerch into who made the heap, from what, when; or a
professional soil analysis.

Other than food-production, you have great conditions for growing
lots of great sun-loving plants from drier climates than the UK. Many
of them positively thrive in rocky-thin-uneven soils, I recommend
asling for a book called "The gravel Garden" by Beth Chatto at your
local library, to see what possibilities lie before you.

One possibility (since you have a fair bit of land) is to approach
local environmental groups/college departments etc, and offer it as a
location for their work-parties/ assistance (or, university
soil/environmental research). This could bring some free expertise and
labour your way. Local environmental groups, and your local council
(environmental dept), should be able to advise you about grants
available for land reclamation /replanting/environmental improvements.
There's a pot of money out there for the tapping.

Resoiling 5 acres at a 30 degree slope (over membrane) is, in my
view, totally impractical without huge resources of money, machinery,
labour etc. You're talking about buying and distributing thousands of
tons of topsoil. Calculate the volume and cost--just for the soil..
from the site below.

I recommend you drop in at a landscaping website called www.paving
expert, run by an expert professional called Tony Mc Cormack who is very
close to you, and used to be an active memeber of this group. He will be
able to advise you about resoiling, membrane, terracing (safely) etc
(free, afaik)

Janet

I think he is talking about 0.5 acres not a full 5 acres ?
Your comments are still relevant but he could do other things if he has
indeed got a half acre.

I am definately talking about 0 point 5 acres ! - putting .5 in the
initial mail without the leading '0' was a bit confusing sorry - Steve

The message
from Janet Baraclough contains these words:
The message
from "Rupert" contains these words:

I think he is talking about 0.5 acres not a full 5 acres ?
Your comments are still relevant but he could do other things if he has
indeed got a half acre.

You're right, sorry..I missed the dot! It's a half acre. Still a
gigantic amount required to re-soil it.

Which is why I suggested doing a trade of soil for rubble with a builder
- they often have to get rid of spoil from footings, etc.

--
Rusty
Direct reply to: horrid dot squeak snailything zetnet point co period uk
Separator in search of a sig

The message
from Steve Fitton contains these words:

I am definately talking about 0 point 5 acres ! - putting .5 in the
initial mail without the leading '0' was a bit confusing sorry - Steve

Please trim - you quoted seventy-four lines of mostly unnecessary text
to post two lines.

--
Rusty
Direct reply to: horrid dot squeak snailything zetnet point co period uk
Separator in search of a sig

On Tue, 10 Jan 2006 23:36:00 GMT, "Phil L"
wrote:


Another thing, with land such as this, it's an ongoing thing, once you've
put topsoil there doesn't mean it will stay there, you will need to top it
up as it washes away over the years, and I wouldn't attempt to do it all at
once, I'd start closest to the house and work away, get a decent sized
segment of it sorted out this year and leave the rest until next year or the
year after, you may decide by then that it's too much work, and to me it
certainly sounds it, without the help of forty navvies and some heavy
machinery.

pops head out of shed and waves to garden workers

I think doing it a bit at a time is the only way to go. Unless you
rent one of those mini digger thingies to help you build the terraces.

I'd recommend using wet newspapers or cardboard as a bottom layer
rather than membrane if you're going to grow deep rooted crops. The
paper will rot away gradually, but before it goes it will have
smothered all your perennial weeds (except the Japanese knotweed which
probably couldn't be smothered by ten feet of concrete).

Worth phoning the local council recycling place and asking if they
have free recycled compost from public parks and gardens. Filling 0.5
of an acre with a layer of topsoil's going to cost an arm and a leg,
but if the council recycle green waste they usually let you have it
free, so long as you pick it up yourself.


--
karen at lesbiangardens dot net