Not needing to create a lawn still like grass to grow,any farmers who can help?

We have just demolished with a 12 tonne tracked JCB a substantial commercial dog kennels which we have never used. The kennels were totally ott with double glazing and heating...better than our house.
They'd been built on an area which is quite steep so the ground had been made suitable by cutting and filling and topsoil and subsoil was all mixed up in the process we've discovered!
Now the kennels are gone and ground put back to how it was originally (as near as possible) it's quite obvious that the vast majority of the soil now at the surface is subsoil with tonnes of stones on the surface...yuk. The area we are talking about is roughly 1/2 an acre.
Obviously we are going to have to stone pick the biggest stones/boulders!!! but it's what to do with the soil so I can at least attempt to turn it back into grazing.
I really don't fancy having to buy in topsoil as that is going to cost a fair bit. Would scattering a large manure heap around on what's there be of any use?
I am NOT expecting a lush green part of a field just for grass to grow enough to make the area look not too bad. i am a fairly experienced gardener and have made lawns before but not too sure if subsoil will support grass or not? Hope someone can give me good news that green stuff with grow!

 

Hi silu...your area of subsoil sounds exactly like what I was left with to make a 'lawn' on. Is your manure heap well decomposed? If it is, it would help turn the subsoil into decent soil quite quickly. Would you be able to rotavate it in? Failing that, spreading an agricultural fertiliser (high N, high P and low K) would give the grass a start. Just cutting the grass without collecting the cuttings would eventually build up a layer of humus but it takes a while. You could also try sowing a grass/white clover mix..the clover feeds the grass and supports drought better during the summer.

 

Thanks @noisette47 for your suggestions. The manure heap is just droppings from a grass fed horse so it really takes no time at all to rot down. It has a fair bit of couch grass it it which will be beneficial for the 1st time ever that I can think of!. I'm hoping the guy who did the demolishing will come back and try to collect at least some of the stone and take it away. If I could get him to pick up the manure heap and scatter/rotavate it in, that i think would be a big improvement on things altho we could do with about 5 times the size of manure heap.Do you think if we threw all the grass clippings from the garden grass (about 1/4 acre) about on the area it would be worth the effort if put on not too thick?
I think it's just the scale of the job which is somewhat off putting AND it's quite a steep slope AND 1 of my knees isn't too keen on walking uphill! I'd really like to get grass sown before say June so that it would have most of the summer to get going. Mind you it is SO dry here (no rain since about 1st week in March) the ground isn't probably wet enough for anything to grow on it!

 

Do you have any potato farmers near by as they may have a machine which destone soil but it's a bigish machine, I'm not sure if jcb do a bucket which will sevie soil,
edit yes you can

Any farmer puting up sheds near you and have some top soil going spare (may cost) or some one cleaning out they pond or digging ditches but this may bring weeds
Any suger beet farmers/factorys where you can get the washing of the suger beet which will be soil
The jcb should will be able to lossen the soil and spread the muck with easy

Grass seed, i would go for a pasture mix and not a ley mix as leese are for 2/3/4 years and are rye grasses

By the way our drive way is gravel and grass grow there, not very well but yes it grows, grass will grow in sub soil but you may have to give it some TLC when dry and also some feed, some farmers are on chalk and they can grow grass/wheat etc

 

Many many thanks @Jiffy. I have spoken with the person who did the main part of the job getting rid of the kennels. He's going to come back with his mini digger and I'm off to hire a sort of rake attachment for it which should be able to at least help the situation. He is going to bring a big trailer and will take a good amount of stone away. Thank god otherwise we would have enough to build the Great Wall of China! Wish he had one of the things you show in your post that would do the job nicely! In farming terms it's not a big area but when you don't have the right machines the task is somewhat daunting. The access to the area isn't brilliant from a bringing in topsoil point of view. Your suggestions re topsoil are very good! We do have a big vegetable producing company quite close to us (Kettle Produce) I could phone and ask what happens to the soil washed off. The don't do Potatoes or Sugar Beet unfortunately but still worth an ask. Not far from here a farmer has just built a massive new shed. I saw what is probably topsoil in a huge heap when I drove past about a fortnight ago. Snag is access which is over another field and while it's dry, fine, if it turns wet then we could be ruining 1 field to improve another!
We have been very lucky with the weather so far with it being bone dry and the 12 tonne tracked vehicle did minimal damage getting to the area. Not sure if the field would stand up to big lorries bringing in topsoil tho. Might try and see if the farmer who has built the new shed would bring the excess topsoil here with a big tractor and trailer and at what cost! Fife farmers are world famous for being as mean as sin.
You have given me lots to work on so again thanks. I have some left over grass seed (tough pasture mix (Carr and Billington I think). It's about 3 years old and have a feeling grass seed doesn't keep very well? It has been stored in a cool and dry outbuilding but do you think it might still be viable? Suppose I could sow it and that would be a sure way of finding out if it'a any good or not!

 

The grass seed should be ok, i know some farmers that have use grass seed and wheat/barley which was 2/3 year old and it was ok

Just be carefull as tractor and trailars can now have a gross weight (31 tons) the same as a 8 wheeler (32 tons) but tractors will go off road better
If you buy any by the ton make sure you have weighbride ticket or you can buy a load for £xxx

Rome wasn't build in a day
The washed soil will be ok for mixing in with the sub soil but won't have much goodness as it's been washed

 

Love your advice re a weighbridge @Jiffy . Being female and not a farmer's wife the local farmers are somewhat inclined to think that I couldn't possibly know anything about soil yet my neighbouring farmer had to admit he didn't know the PH levels on his ground while I know mine!
Indeed there is a weighbridge not a million miles from here so if my enquiries re any spare topsoil being available are fruitful and it is priced per tonne then I will suggest the farmer comes here via said weighbridge....he'll be gobsmacked!

 

It's all coming together.....even the weather is set to change for the wetter....

 

@silu I see things going on all the time, one thing you have to be carefull with is, if you buy something from the veg factory you can not hire a farmer to haul it for you as this will be haulage and not agri, but you can buy something from a farmer and he/she can haul it to you, if you buy from veg factory you can have it haul to you with lorry and tipped in the first field then get tractor + trailor to haul to second field
Lots of grey area's with agri tax (road fund licence)

 

Make sure he/she tare's in first then gross weighs to give you net weight or gross then tare's, some will take t+t to weightbrighe for gross and manally put in a tare weight which could be a few kilo's less

There may be a cost for the weighbrigde in and out, not sure of the price now but it could be £7-£12 but now sure

 

Thanks again @Jiffy, I will do my utmost not to get done! The weighbridge does charge, I used it once a few years back and think it was about a tenner then.....sigh!
Why does it seem that so many are on "the make" these days?
Best 1 I had was when lumberjacks employed by Scottish Power stole my trees! We negotiated with SP to have some massive Poplar (not a favourite of mine) felled as they were near their power lines. Part of the deal was for them to log all the wood so we could use it in the log burner. Poplar ain't great burning wood but better than nothing., I had to out when they were busy taking the trees down. Got home about 4 hours later and saw no trees and a small pile of logs. "What the!". To cut a long story short I guessed right that the majority of the trees had ended up at a local saw mill and the lumberjacks had been paid about £600 for the wood, terrific. However, I got onto them and muttered something to do with theft and oh surprise they sent me a cheque for what they had got for the trees and I said I wanted 2 cases of very good/expensive Malt Whisky as a sorry......extremely nice it was too!

 

Tis the same down here, i have lots of stories