new to gardening
 

hi,

I bought some seeds for my 8 year old daughter to set up a little area in the garden. I got lettuce, cabbage and carrots. The garden is a grass lawn and I dug about 50 cm deep to take the grass away, there are 2 strips about 8ft x 3ft. I just do not want the grass to come back and I was wondering if I need to do something else before I plant the seeds? Also do I need some special soil to use? any ideas, tips, links would be great!

new to gardening
 

"newyork123" wrote in message
...

hi,

I bought some seeds for my 8 year old daughter to set up a little area
in the garden. I got lettuce, cabbage and carrots. The garden is a
grass lawn and I dug about 50 cm deep to take the grass away, there are
2 strips about 8ft x 3ft. I just do not want the grass to come back and
I was wondering if I need to do something else before I plant the seeds?
Also do I need some special soil to use? any ideas, tips, links would
be great!

What is the weather like in New York in April?

Tim W

It seems like you´ve done some pretty hard work there. Grass is quite shallow rooted, so you´ve done more than enough..Any decent compost will do for planting your seeds.

new to gardening
 

"newyork123" wrote to newsgroup uk.rec.gardening via Gardenbanter
I bought some seeds for my 8 year old daughter to set up a little area
in the garden. I got lettuce, cabbage and carrots. The garden is a
grass lawn and I dug about 50 cm deep to take the grass away, there are
2 strips about 8ft x 3ft. I just do not want the grass to come back and
I was wondering if I need to do something else before I plant the seeds?
Also do I need some special soil to use? any ideas, tips, links would
be great!

Thats some deep digging, should be fine to remove any normal grass
permanently although you will get some seed within the area just like any
other weed.
The seed packets usually give you information on sowing seed, and we usually
sow our lettuce and cabbage in trays (Rootrainers) using a proprietary seed
compost and plant them out when big enough plants. Carrot seed we plant in
situ and cover over with last years old compost, but then we keep our own
carrot seed, IME bought carrot seed can be difficult to germinate. I don't
know if Carrot Root Fly is a problem where you are but we have to ensure a
2ft high barrier all round our carrots to try to keep them off and still the
fly gets in.

--
Regards
Bob Hobden
My fav video of the moment
http://yeli.us:80/Flash/Fire.html

I am in manchester UK!

Did you really mean that you have dug out 20 inches of soil to remove the grass... if so as has been said above you have done much more than enough!

new to gardening
 

"newyork123" wrote in message
...

hi,

I bought some seeds for my 8 year old daughter to set up a little area
in the garden. I got lettuce, cabbage and carrots. The garden is a
grass lawn and I dug about 50 cm deep to take the grass away, there are
2 strips about 8ft x 3ft. I just do not want the grass to come back and
I was wondering if I need to do something else before I plant the seeds?
Also do I need some special soil to use? any ideas, tips, links would
be great!




--
newyork123

Stack the grass that you have removed in a pile face to face and leave it to
make a nice rich loam

Thanks for all your replies!! I just measured the depth, it is about 30 cm, not 50 cm (it felt more like 250cm the next day)! It was very wet and the shovel went straight down, it seemed easier to do it that way because the roots were deep and trying just to get the top few inches was a real pain. There was a lot of soil to move afterwards though, but it was in nice blocks and strips.

I will fill the hole back up with some compost and plant some seeds and see how it goes!! I will look out for some Rootrainers for the cabbage and lettuce as suggested by Bob.

Cheers again everyone!




--
newyork123[/i][/color]

Stack the grass that you have removed in a pile face to face and leave it to
make a nice rich loam[/quote]