This topic contains 15 replies, has 4 voices, and was last updated by ruth noble 11 years, 9 months ago.
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Hello Ruth
There is no need to loosen the turf as grass roots and worm channels have already done that.
All the composts you mention are suitable and worms should enjoy them and gradually integrate them with the soil below. Straw is not a good plan as it needs nutrients to decompose and will use some from the composts around it if you put it in the bed. I use straw for the compost heap. Wood ash is alright but not too much, say a bucket per bed of 8×4 feet. Put the rest in your compost heap, little and often.
Compost with weed seeds could be put on as first layer, and your nice worm compost as surface layer, then cardboard on top. The latter may need replenishing with another layer of card on top if it is rotting and starting to blow away by late winter.
Then by April I would remove any remaining cardboard and you can start sowing and planting. Weeds from your compost will need pulling or hoeing but will be easy to deal with (when small, as seedlings) because compost is so soft and friable. Once the first flush of weed seeds have germinated, weeding becomes much less and easier, but you must do it regularly, even just for a minute a week, or whatever it takes to keep the bed clean and not have any more weeds going to seed.The cardboard layer is a one-off and does not need repeating. It may even be unnecessary if your compost layer on the grass is six inches deep, which is thick enough to exclude all light and prevent re-growth of most perennial weeds such as buttercup.
You could put a few down for worms to take in but not too many or they may be in the way of sowing, depending what you do next spring.
Hi
I wonder if Ruth could try the stale seed bed method next spring by letting the weeds appear and then cover them to kill them off before sowing or planting?
Yes she could, but I think it would be much easier and quicker to hoe or scuffle the weed seedlings.
I am thinking of taking some of my lawn for planting. There’s some Bermuda grass in there. Will the 6″ of compost work on that as well? There’s the old joke of “How do you get rid of a Bermuda lawn? First step – buy a new house…”
I would leave them for now, they are recycling old grass… but come the spring, if the cardboard is still in place and harbouring slugs, you could dispose of them however you wish to do it, before planting.
It is an extremely sluggy autumn and I have more than usual, especially compared to the dry and cold of last winter at this time.
Well done Ruth that sounds good, you could either leave the mulch in place eg for later planting of courgette, summer beans, leek; or remove it for imminent plantings of salad, cabbage, beetroot and sowings of carrot, salad onion or whatever. As you suggest, the weed seeds will start to germinate and can be hoed off (or scuffled or pulled) before sowing/planting, then some more will germinate… but if you keep on top of them when small, soon your soil surface will become clean. The first year is often a lot about persisting but there is a great end result awaiting, of a much cleaner soil/compost surface.
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