Total newbie here, greetings fellow gardeners!

Hi all

I just bought a house. The garden is a right state and I need some advice.
The previous owner was concrete happy because the stuff is everywhere, I've removed well over 10 tons of footings and pathways and goodness knows what else and I'm only half way.
My question is about soil depth. Once I've removed all this rock I'm going to sieve the remaining soil of large stones, feed it and hopefully get a nice lawn.
But I'm not sure how deep the soil needs to be to get healthy grass.
I can track underground pathways in my garden by following the yellow lines of grass so it obviously doesn't like it too shallow.
Also, wouldn't all that concrete have effected the soil in some way? I've read it can leech unwanted stuff into the dirt.
I'd also like to grow potatoes at some point so if they require deeper soil then so be it.
And one more question, if I sieve all the stones from the soil would it mean the garden would be more prone to flooding given there would technically be less drainage?
Sorry for the long post, I have searched the forums and got a few answers but nothing definitive.

 

Welcome to Gardeners Corner Bruvvamoff. I'm going to work in reverse here.

What sort of soil do you have, sandy, clay etc? If you have a sandy soil like mine it will drink water and drain easily. So removal of a lot of the stones will help. If you have heavy clay that needs to be broken up, then leave some of the stones in, it will help with drainage.

Having lifted all the concrete the soil will need to be dug over (at least a spades depth) to loosen it and get some air into it. Once again if it's sandy, nutrients in the soil would have disappeared quickly along with any water, so there will be a need to get some compost dug in and if possible lay a few inches of new topsoil after. Clay would be better having sand dug into it to open up the soil.

Grass roots only need up to five inches of soil to grow but obviously plants or vegetables will need a lot more, I would say a minimum of 2ft depth. The other answer is to have raised beds for potatoes etc., boxing off areas above normal ground level.

 

Welcome to GC

 

Update, I've got myself a couple of sieves and they work great. I should be able to sieve the whole garden by 2050.

 

First sieve load of soil in my old garden in Wales yielded a great big quartz crystal.

Sieved the whole garden, never found another one

 

When I worked in construction, the minimum topsoil depth for grassed areas was 150mm/6 inches. If filling with topsoil where pavings have been removed it's a good idea to loosen the compacted soil underneath to improve drainage.

Topsoil depths for shrub beds used to be minimum of 200mm/8 inches (preferably 300mm if sufficient was available and it didn't involve much additional subsoil excavation) and for allotments 300mm/12 inches. But having said that when we stripped topsoil from existing cultivated garden areas it was approx. 300mm/12 inches deep, and on existing allotment sites up to 450mm/18 inches deep.

Fortunately, now I'm retired, the joys of using Simpsons Rule and calculating Cut & Fill lines have long gone.

 

Good luck with the sieving Bruvvamoff. We'll expect to see pictures when you've finished in 2050, if we're still around!

 

Hello, welcome