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?

Pam in Bristol

"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?

Pam in Bristol

Pam.,

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.

"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

On 20 Aug, 08:19, "Bob Hobden" wrote:
"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

You are right Pam. you take off the turf about1 to 2 inches thick, and
build it into a wall face down,left for a couple of years the gress
rots down and you are left with good potting loam.
If the ground has a lot of couch grass (Twitch to some of you) then
building a turf wall of it wont kill it off but you can still spray
the wall when the grass grows, that way you may not need so much on
the plot.
On one alotment site in Cardiff, when someone was taking over a
deralict plot they would cover the site with old palats and burn them
prior to the new user taking over, that cleared a lot of the weed and
weed seed and gave them an easier start.
One answer to a bad plot is to work it a bit at a time, or get BBC to
use it for a gardening prog. when they can throw loads of money at it.
David Hill