A Foolish Way To Grow Grass Or A Stroke Of Genius?

[Ouya Mellsa]

I want to re-turf quite a large area. Direct sowing of seed is not practical for various reasons (such as animal disturbance, etc) and rolls of turf are very expensive in bulk.

So, I hit on sowing seeds in compost trays and growing my own 'slices of turf'.

Like so:



Obviously this will take some time, but I'm hoping that the roots will knit together to form a neat 'slice'.

Have you ever tried this and does it work?

[Gearoid]

I don't see why not. I was just reading Toby Buckland's new GW book and he was doing a similar thing in seed trays, but using small chunks from his lawn instead to grow on and then later use to patch up any bare spots.

[Ouya Mellsa]

Great! Thanks.

Toby's the one to follow, as far as I'm concerned!

[Two_Sheds]

I do that for my guinea pigs in winter (grow oat & wheat seeds in a seedtray, on windowsill)

I've never tried transplanting it, but I guess it should work, if you have room for all those trays

[SarzWix]

What are you sowing it into? Looks like compost... Wouldn't topsoil be a better medium?

When we had to resow our back garden, we just fenced it off in sections, so that the animals weren't being kept of the whole thing. We just used tree-stakes and netting as a temporary fence, was enough to keep a large German Shepherd out for a couple of months..
And, we used that Easy Lawn seed, which has micro-clover in the mix - the clover roots fix nitrogen, which feeds the grass, so it establishes quite quickly.

[Snadger]

It depends on the mix of grass seed species. If its just ryegrass it will probably fall apart. Fescues and Bent grases and various other cultivars have either rhysomes or stolons which knit the turf together.
Another idea would be to put a layer of compost, a layer of fine mesh and another layer of compost on top. The plant roots should intermingle with the mesh and hold the 'turve' together.

Good luck with your experiment!

[Ouya Mellsa]

Interesting replies, peeople! Thanks for the tips.

It is MP compost I'm using. I will also try a few trays with topsoil as the medium.

I will report back to you guys on how it goes.