Turf Stack

It seems like a few other forum members are, like me, stripping off turf to create beds for vegetables or flowers and the question arises, what to do with the turf? So here's a picture of what about 9 square metres of turf looks like when it's stacked (green side down, of course!). The bit of plastic mesh on the top is to deter Mr Blackbird from rearranging the top bits.



The stack is about 1000mm x 800mm and about 450mm high. I read somewhere that landscaping contractors found their topsoil lost much of its worm population if they stacked it too high in storage. They now try to spread it out as much as possible so I've adopted the same principle. If you were a worm, I guess you wouldn't want to go too far down!

When stacking, it helps if you keep the turfs approximatley the same size. I won't touch this stack for at least 18 months, except to trim the long grass that will grow from the sides and top. But by then, it should be good top soil, fingers crossed.

 

Brilliant Flinty and it's neat and tidy too so no eyesore there! Well done.

 

Flinty.

That's a very tidy job and thanks for creating this thread. Very useful.

Ant.

 

May goodness Flinty I have to agree with the others a very neat job, me I just throw it all under the hedge and hope for the best!:o Hel.xxx.

 

Hello Flinty, I 've done more or less the same thing but not with quite the precision that was evidently used when you created your stack. I also made one a couple of years ago but nothing much seems to have happened yet, I read that it will break down to give a good loamy and useful soil but what would the normal legth of time for this process?

 

Hi T Digger

I made a turf stack many years ago and seem to remember I left it about 18 months. But that was in a garden where a previous owner had laid turfs over an old vegetable plot. In other words, the grass in the turfs just had to die off and hey presto, it all reverted to good loam.

I Googled "turf stacks" recently and the concensus was that 18 months to two years was the minimum time to wait. Some folk said it went on getting better after that, like fine wine! But the turfs I've stacked now are really poor scruffy things - like old carpet tiles!
I'll peek inside my stack in about 18 months but it'll probably need a bit longer.

If your stack isn't doing much yet, it's possibly because your turfs were just so poor, like mine. I favour keeping the top exposed to the elements so the rain can get in. You could try giving it some help by sticking a fork into the top and sloshing a bit of liquid manure (or similar) into it.

At the end of the day, our stacks may never produce absolutely top grade loam because they just don't have the material in them to do so. But at least the soil will be better than it was and we'll have recycled the turf, rather than dumping it.

 

Thanks for the info Flinty, my older stack was made up of poor quality grass rather than turf from an area laid as lawn, so maybe I shouldn't expect too much of it. It is also pretty dry but at least it's out of the way and as you say, eventually it will be recycled one way or the other. I'll remove some of the higher level turves to lower the overall height as you suggested, cheers T Digger.