Getting rid of a lawn

I want to get rid of part of a lawn to turn over to a veg patch to plant this year. Too late now to sheet cover to kill the grass so my three options are:-
a) remove turf by hand and dig over the ground.
b) Turn the ground and bury the turf
c) Spray Glyphosate then turn the soil when grass is dead

c) is what I would prefer - however, how long will the weedkiller be active in the soil. How long will I have to wait before planting.

islayhawk

 

Gyphosate will only be active in the plants you've sprayed, it doesn't stay in the soil.

However, chances are that the wireworm that live on the grass roots will then go on to wreack havock with your veg.

The prefered option would be to strip the turf completely and stack it to rot for a year.

 

Hi Islayhawk

Its my understanding that glyphosphate acts on the plant themselves killing the roots. And that it is doesn't stay in the soil - except for the odd day or two.

However I am sure somebody who knows more than me will answer.

Ziggy - you beat me to it as I wrote, but I hadn't considered wire worms.

 

Hi Islayhawk
I would agree with Ziggy and Peter on the glyphosphate not being a problem ,if you go down that route .
I personally would go for removing and stacking the turf unless you have a huge area ..

Dave

 

I doubt that Glyphosate will work well at this time of the year, it needs the "Weeds" to be actively growing. If you are going to leave it a bit then it will work better.

Either way there will be weed seed in the "turf", which contact-weed-killers won't kill, so it would be better to take care of the top couple of inches - as you say: either bury it, or remove it and stack it, grass-side-down, to make "loam".

Personally I think that proper digging, at the outset, is the best way of converting barren ground to a veg patch.

I cheated and had the local farmer plough mine (Autumn time, so I had sprayed it with Glyphosate beforehand, and the plough's mouldboard buried the top inch or two into the previous furrow anyway), and then used a mini-tractor with PTO rotavator to get the soil "workable"

For digging best to double dig (two spade-depths ("Spits") but don't mix the topsoil with the subsoil), if you are not familiar with the double-digging process here's a brief explanation:

Dig a trench one spit deep across the plot, and barrow the soil to the far end. This is the first "row"

Loosen soil at the bottom of the trench (i.e. the second spit) that you have just made in Row One - using a fork is easiest - and add well rotted manure / compost

Remove turf from the next row to be dug (Row Two) and place upside down on top of the second spit (which you just loosened in Row One).

Then dig the top spit from the Row Two into the trench made in Row One

Repeat until you get to the end of the plot

When you get to the end of the plot the soil you barrowed there from Row One can go into the final trench to fill it in.

The root-mat of the old turf will not regrow from that far down, and it will provide fantastic moisture retention for the roots of the veg you grow.

 

That is just what I have been doing this week with my Lawn (meadow) ready for my Veg plot, only 12' x 12' but it is hard graft at my age, and rain has stopped play, what was nice light loam, is becoming compacted mud with me standing on it, So I have forked it all over, and awaiting it to frost or dry out
(variation on a theme, I am taking the second spit out and piling it up, then putting compost in with the top soil for 30% for the carrot, onion part the other 70% second spit to pile, then replacing with original top soil, compost and manure, for the Potato plot)
What was originaly what I thought good 18" of reasonable soil the last 6" down to 24" deep is becoming boulders about a cubic foot each, actually easier to dispose of than the second spit earth but heavy to lift and cart away
Maybe I could start a rockery ?

Jack McH