Turning a lawn into a veg patch - rotivate or DIY digging?

[123Deb321]

It's my back garden, and as we only moved into the house a few months ago, we don't want to let the land sit with compost/manure of it to help aid it on its way, we want a quick result, so we'd like to get it done as quickly as possible, and get some plants in it. The veg part should be okay, as I can start plants off in pots before planting out.

[Kristen]

we want a quick result, so we'd like to get it done as quickly as possible, and get some plants in it. The veg part should be okay, as I can start plants off in pots before planting out.

As a fall back you can buy plants - if you have failures / run out of time to raise your own / whatever. Plants in the garden centre (or online etc.) will be about 8 weeks old, so buying them will be equivalent to you having sown seed in containers + potted on a couple of months earlier.

[alldigging]

Just by way of "scale": mine is about the size of two full size allotments - 250 sq.m.

1 full allotment plot
Allotment Info – The National Allotment Society – National Society of Allotment and Leisure Gardeners Ltd
10 poles is the accepted size of an allotment, the equivalent of 250 square metres or about the size of a doubles tennis court.

[Kristen]

"Cock" as James May would say

Too dark to measure it ... maybe it is 500 sq.m., or maybe what I have is pretty average.

I'll do a rough calc: The two greenhouses 10' & 30' are end to end and the same length as the beds. The raised beds are 4' wide plus, say, 18" for the paths. There are 12 beds on that side and another 9 on the other, although they are in a triangular bit so not all as long. Let's say an average of 30'

So ...

40' x 12 beds x (4' + 18" wide) on one half
30' x 9 beds x (4' + 18" wide) on the other half
plus about a 4' path up the middle

Actually that first calculation is pretty much 250 sq.m. so I reckon it must be 500 sq.m. and its just my memory that is utterly useless

[Mr Bones]

Hi Deb
I guess it depends whether you have a strong enough back to tackle the digging and what sort of weeds you have. After taking on our current plot, time was running out and we had to ask ourselves if we were here to grow veg or here to remove weeds. The last bed to sort was about 12 x 12 metres, had been compacted for years and was covered primarily in grass and dandelions. It was too hard to dig, even with a fork, so I bit the bullet and rotavated to about a foot deep. Afterwards the chopped dandelions grew at a pace but they were weakened and pulled out of the soft earth easily.Then we planted it quite densely with spuds and by harvest time there wasn't a dandelion to be seen, just a small area of weakened bind weed which soon succumbed to hand digging.

[planetologist]

Whatever digging method you use, I would dig beds (most people use 4' wide so that you can work the beds without standing on them) and leave the grass on paths.

[Snow]

In my case, I couldn't dig (illness) and so I tried no dig, just putting down cardboard on top of the grass and I cut out small patches where I wanted plants and obviously had to get in there with a trowel in order to plant the seedlings. The cardboard has been rotting down over winter, grass is almost entirely gone, I have lots and lots of worms, and my PSB is doing very well.

I will try to get someone to turn some of it over in spring/summer if possible, but it has worked surprisingly well not digging it at all.

[Thelma Sanders]

You could make lazy beds
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BLy_W8la7s

[Snadger]

First of all congratulations on getting rid of your green dessert and making a vegetable plot. If you are going to have a greenhouse or propagate your own plants i would deffo recommend building a heap of upturned turves and allowing them to rot down. After a year or so these are an ideal base for a John Innes type potting compost as by then they will be a fibrous loam.
As it was a lawn there shouldn't be too many perennial weeds to contend with? If the area is small and you are reasonably fit, dig it putting the upturned turves in the bottom of the trench if not required for potting compost If the area is large a rotavator may be better (this is the first time i have EVER advocated a rotavator.) If you are adopting a bed system, mark it out roughly on the bare soil and only dig the growing area. I practice a 'no dig' system myself but the first year I dug both of my allotmentss over as I wanted to know what was underneath the soil and what it was comprised of. I wouldn't advocate a no dig from the start for this reason.

Good luck and I would stay away from tatties for the first year which are prone to wireworm damage from a previous lawned area.

[Kristen]

If the area is large a rotavator may be better

Rotavator is hard work on virgin, compacted, soil - particularly if clay rather than sand

The names are interchangeable, but a cultivator might be easier (but I still think it will be hard work). By Cultivator I mean the type where not only the tines but also the wheels are driven, and thus forward speed is controlled and steady, whereas a Rotavator I think of as something where you take the jockey-wheels off and just the tines are driven by the engine.

[hellybore]

Just as an add-on question to this thread, does anyone know if the burying turfs method works if there is couch grass present? So far I have removed the turf from new beds in my allotment and stacked it in a pile to rot down, which has worked fine, but I'd like to try the burying way for the next one. Less carrying heavy turfs about. I could add cardboard and manure once the turf has been buried to keep any remaining couch grass in the dark, and plant through this?

[Aberdeenplotter]

you won't keep couch down by burying it. If there is couch present, stack the turves upside down and give it a shake about from time to time once its had a chance to compost down the other vegetation. It can take a while but a little work every so often and it will soon be useable