New Grass Turf Project Help!

[Sunshine30]

Hello

I’m after some advice, tips (and probably some reassurance!) regarding the bog I am currently left with half way through preparing the soil for our new grass turf.

Half way through digging up the old grass and soil, the weather turned and we’ve had almost torrential rain off and on the last few days. We are left with large areas that are just waterlogged where the mini digger has been and made the soil underneath compacted. If it hadn’t of rained so much, we planned on raking and levelling out but the weather put a stop to this as the ground became too wet to work with. To the right of the garden, the ground is fine (as the digger didn’t go there so no compacted soil!).

Obviously there is nothing we can do right now with the ground being so waterlogged and the project will be delayed until the weather turns and the water eventually goes.

My concern is that the ground is obviously compacted and so flooded that it’ll be hard to even turn the soil over with time.

I’m not sure exactly what advice I’m after here but possibly reassurance and tips as to if this will all eventually dry out enough to work with and once it does, how to fully clear the compacted soil (we no longer have the digger).

The overall plan for the project was to dig up the old grass, level out and lay new turf. Prior to this, we had a gradual sloping garden which we wanted to level to run flush with the patio.
Any advice welcome!

Thank you so much in advance

 

[Tetters]

Welcome to the forums.
That is a very very tiny plot to put a digger on. It would probably have been so much easier to just dig it over with a garden fork. Now it is in a mess, and depending on what kind of soil you have, clearly you need to let it drain and start digging anyway. so it is just a question of patience.
As a thought (hopefully helpful) with the state of food prices as well as its scarcity it may be an idea to consider doing away with grass, and using your space to grow some vegetables there. This would be a great time to plan. Include a few flowers too to attract bees.

 

[Sunshine30]

Hi, thank you for your reply

The garden is wider than showing on the photos so is quite a large area to dig by hand (we did consider this). The main reason for the mini digger was more because it was pretty sloped before hand so we had to dig down a lot to get it all level which by hand I’m not sure would have been possible (the mini digger even struggled in certain areas).

I love your suggestion of a veg patch…but we really do want grass for our child to enjoy in the warmer months. We may add a veg patch in time in a smaller section.

We are just trying to aerate the area as much as possible so that we can get rid of the dips to avoid more water collection before the heavy rainfall due tomorrow. Thankfully the amount of water has reduced a bit since yesterday, so as you say, just need patience and the hope of less rain!

Thank you again for taking the time to reply

 

[Sean Regan]

There's time to let the garden dry out and prepare the soil ready for the turf.
The only thing I would add is get the best quality turf you can find. Much of the stuff at the sheds, is delivered on a pallet and can be stuck outside for days drying out in the sun. Some is also often "short of actual grass."

 

[Tetters]

It may help to know if your soil is clay. If so, before the new turf is put down it would be worth considering adding some grit to help drainage in the future.

 

[zigs]

Tetters dug all this out at the age of 76 armed only with a spade

We don't let her use the mini digger any more after she chased the bloke from tv licensing off with it

 

[Tetters]

Actually Zigs, it was my new fork from Kent & Stowe, £24.99

 

[Sunshine30]

There's time to let the garden dry out and prepare the soil ready for the turf.
The only thing I would add is get the best quality turf you can find. Much of the stuff at the sheds, is delivered on a pallet and can be stuck outside for days drying out in the sun. Some is also often "short of actual grass."

Hi Sean,

Thanks for your message. Yes, we’ve managed to get it flatter ready for the next lot of rain so that it doesn’t fill all the previous holes and craters with water and then will just leave it to dry out as much as possible.

We’ve gone for really good quality turf which will be cut the morning of delivery.

Once the ground is dried out, we plan to fully level, add top soil, rake over and use a roller to try and get as flat as possible (without compacting!) before laying turf.

 

[Sunshine30]

Tetters dug all this out at the age of 76 armed only with a spade

We don't let her use the mini digger any more after she chased the bloke from tv licensing off with it

Very impressive! we definitely would have dug by hand if we hadn’t had to lower ground level as much as we did. If it was flat and we were just removing old turf then we would have done but unfortunately we used a mini digger as we were lowering the ground level a lot due to quite a sloping area to start with.

Shame the tv licensing bloke didn’t turn up whilst we had the digger…or I could have been tempted to chase him off too