What should I use to turn over my garden to get all the weeds out before I cover it in gravel?

Answer 1

If you plant to cover the area in gravel, why bother turning the soil? You are just going to get a soft base under the covered area, prone to settling.

Kill the weeds first. Spray with roundup and wait a week. This should kill everything. (roundup has no residual soil effect, so you are OK to plant again) Cut the weeds back to soil level and spread a water permeable weed barrier, then cover that with your gravel, 3" deep. If you are planting after the gravel goes down, I'd recommend mulch around the base of the plant as opposed to the gravel. Mulch doesn't hold heat like rocks do.. your plants will be happier.

Answer 2

This very much depends on the state of the garden under the weeds. If you are only going to put gravel on top and the ground is flat you don't need to go to the bother of rotovating, I would only do that if I were going to plant it or lawnseed it. Kill off the weeds with something like Roundup and then when all the weeds have died, rake them up and cover the whole lot with porous webbing before covering in gravel. If you don't put the webbing down you will have all the seeds of the weeds that were there germinating and coming through the gravel. If you use a rotovator as some have suggested that's a biiiiiiig job as you would then need to flatten the soil again before putting down webbing and gravel. I'd only use a rotovator if I was going to plant the garden, or lawn afterwards or if the garden is really uneven..

Answer 3

Turning over the garden will only bury many weeds deeper, I would not turn the garden over yet. First kill the weeds with Glyphosate (the ingredient found in Roundup) which will kill the weeds from the roots up, which will take 3-4 weeks after spraying, depending on the size weeds/roots. IT IS WELL WORTH THE WAIT IN THE THE LONG RUN , I do speak from experience.

Answer 4

I'd love to give you a brief answer like wikipaster, but I would use a rotovator (which you can hire for the weekend) or just get a decent fork, roll up your sleeves and get stuck in. If you are putting down gravel, make sure you lay down some weed suppressant matting first, or the weeds will come back!

Answer 5

My understanding is that if you use the gravel that includes small pieces and even dust size it blocks all light. I would get more than one opinion. I had trouble with the ground turning to mud after a rain and walking or driving on it my feet got muddy and of course the car tore it up and got stuck. I put regular gray grave down. The grass grew between it and now I have a beautiful grass area that I can walk and drive on without getting muddy and don't have to mow as often. We put down black plastic under dirt and it didn't do anything. Grass still came up. Tound Up killed some poison ivy or oak I had and it never came back.

Answer 6

Pleeease tell me you're doing this because someone is holding a gun to your head, you love the look of the lunar surface or you you "think" you'll never need to mow or worry about weeding again!! The truth is, the gravel will trap dirt and debris and in a year or two become the most fertile soil known to man and home to weeds from other worlds. Think about it. RScott

Answer 7

Why dont you save yourself a lot of hard digging by using a good weed killer first,put plenty on the area you wish to gravel.leave for a few days until existing weeds are all shrivelled,then rake this up,you may need to dig out deep rooted weeds.When you have cleared the space,try& level the ground out as best you can,either by rolling something heavy over it or getting the family to all have a good stamp around to flatten it & as suggested by others,cover with black polythene sheeting or matting,old carpet works well & saves money,then your ready for your gravel topping.

Answer 8

You can scrape off weeds and grass with a good sharp hoe (the heavier the better) or a flat bladed shovel, you can sharpen the edge of the shovel if you have a fair amount to do.

Answer 9

You can hire a Rotovator from a plant hire centre for a day. It will do all the work in a couple of hours. All you have to do then, is level it after. Saves hours of work.

Answer 10

spraying a herbicide such as Roundup will do the job but you have to be very careful with residual spray. Other plants will die if Roundup spray gets to them. Roundup is a product used in Australia.