[tyreswing]

Hello

Hope you're all fabulous this evening!

We are a newly fledged community garden group made up of keen mums, even keener children and the occasional strong dad type when they're not working. We live in council flats and want to grow vegetables and flowers to share amongst the residents. We have permission to reinstate the beds in front of each block of flats and the soil is gloriously rich (we border open farmland in Cornwall) but it is also full of the detritus of many years of neglect and digging just an inch into the soil yields broken glass, old toys and litter. The workforce is made up of mums, babies and toddlers and a feral gang of good hearted children up to the age of 12.

As we have very little experience and are about to embark on a big push to get a growing area for next year I was wondering if you have any advice or ideas or opinions on how we can either clear the soil safely or maybe build raised beds and sacrifice soil we know is productive (we have had potatoes, strawbs, onions, peas, courgettes and gooseberries in our haphazard attempts so far) for unknown topsoil we buy to fill them.

Thanks in advance for any help, the families are finding time and energy to invest in our community and we want to use it wisely.

[Yorkie]

Unless you have a lot of money to put deep raised beds together safely, and to fill them, I think that you are going to have to resign yourselves to clearing the glass etc - at least from the areas where you will grow removable veggies.  I wouldn't want to start digging for spuds and cut myself on glass 

I'd advise that the clearance is not done with toddlers or youngsters in tow; use decent gloves with leather on the fingers / palms, and work out how you're going to get the rubbish off-site (car trips to the tip?  council skip?).

Sounds a lovely plan though and good luck (and welcome to the site  )

[thedadtony]

A great idea, best of luck with your project!!!

[MegC1991]

Good Luck with the project, sounds wonderful, exactly the sort of thing that needs to be done across the country really! I don't really have much useful advice as such, it's best left to the experts, but I suppose as you're clearing the soil, you can riddle it, that way you can still use the good stuff once you've finished?

[sarajane]

Hello there and welcome.

Unfortunately as Yorkie says, there really is only one way to deal with this problem, all adult hands to the deck.  I think there are quite a few of us here that have had to clear terrible plots at some time or another.

Good luck with your project though.  You have all autumn and winter to clear the land.  Just ensure you keep all involved focussed and have fun while doing it.

(oh, before and after photos needed and they may inspire the group to carry on the great work)

[tyreswing]

Thanks for the replies, you've confirmed what I thought   and got the old grey matter moving...

The point of the garden is to empower the children here to take care of their environment as they are the main perpetrators of the litter and broken toys (the glass is from a window change some years back, the space is now well respected, south facing and windy as all hell   elemental gardening) plus tiny ones needing close supervision directly involves the parents, I guess we're as much an experiment in social relationships as a veg patch! Some families are mum and 3 or 4 children under 6, working together is simply a necessity. The tribe play out as a big gang in the shared space so involving them from the start and inviting them to see the hassle and risk involved in removing the rubbish will be a good lesson. Plus they are an untapped resource, you should see how fast they turn over the earth with a garden claw, I've always had enough before they have!

Thank you allotment.org! One post to the right people and I have got it sussed...we have access to tools and occasionally a carpenter and cheap scaff boards locally. We can clear an area and use the riddled out soil to fill a raised bed with many small hands making light work if I can come up with a large scale child powered soil riddler on a stand. Digging and dumping it through the riddling system right next door will be efficient and sufficiently messy to be great fun. Adults can supervise and deal with dangerous waste and only the teeny tinies need be elsewhere.

So...any ideas on how the devil I might make one? (am I best asking that in a different section of the forum?)  
 

[compostqueen]

My plot was filled with broken glass and I dare not kneel on the ground because there was so much glass threatening to impale me. It took quite a while to clear it, and it keeps emerging several years down the line.

A guy on our site ended up in Casualty when some bagged glass he was taking to the tip stabbed his leg through the layers of fertiliser bags he'd wrapped it in as he was making his way to the car. 

So, be careful. I'd keep children off there at least until you've cleared the worst of it

[Yorkie]

I agree that you need to be aware that the glass will continue coming to the surface for some years to come.

I'd post a separate question in the Equipment Shed or Design & Construction (whichever one you post in, someone might move it to the other!) forum about how to construct the soil riddle 

[tyreswing]

Yep, I have a similar fear and respect of glass, hence posting here to gather the wisdom of a group used to breaking challenging ground to gather accumulated wisdom   I am experienced in leading children's activities, just new to gardening so doing my research before embarking the area is a big, sterile council garden with old, overgrown flowerbeds which have turned back into grass and a few shrubs tough enough to stand up to municipal strumming.
Building a series of raised beds over the winter, each one filled with cleaned soil from the next patch along will break it into bite sized pieces. I think making them deep will help and mean we have a simple process which will work the same every time we want to clear ground so will minimize risk. We got a great crop of potatoes in tyres above ground after riddling a small patch underneath and using clean soil. I suppose another possibility is sinking containers in the ground, cleaning the soil from the hole and half filling them then topping up with soil from elsewhere (we have a growing composting system too so in time we can use that to top up beds and containers).

I think I have found my device. We have pallet wood we could transform into one of these: http://www.nifty-stuff.com/compost-sifter-screen-sieve.php

[Salmo]

Do you have contact with a local Councillor or whoever gave permission for you to use the beds?

The proper solution would be to remove a layer of soil and replace it with something glass free. Councils have access to tractors and diggers. If they have a garden waste recycling scheme they will have compost.

If you do not ask you will not get.

[allotmentann]

Salmo's suggestion is good. I am sure as a community project somebody would be willing to help -  even larger local companies might donate top soil etc if you ask.
If you do end up having to clear all the glass by hand you will find that a good time to check the soil over is after rain, which seems to bring it to the surface.I have a patch on my plot that was just full of it. It is horrible. I keep getting out more and more. All the best with your project. 

[pdblake]

If you can get hold of a sheet of wire mesh you could sieve the soil, shovel it all out, through the mesh and into a heap, then shovel it all back again. You could fetilise as you go then as well.

[savbo]

if you can get hold of a small supermarket trolley (ask for a broken one?) the basket part would make a good riddle - even with a handle!

sav

[angelavdavis]

There is a local community garden project called Moveable feast near me, they don't have a website, but do have a Facebook page.  They managed to get support from local building suppliers and garden centres for their project. 

As Ann says, it is worth approaching people.  I would have thought the council would be a good source for support - particularly in terms of the soil issue you have.  I would also ask them about bark chips for covering paths, logs, etc for bug hotels, and so on. 

In addition, if you have a local community network (we have one called Sussex community network but there are usually local ones), there are small grants available to groups such as these - we have one locally available to allotments and food growing groups sponsored by the local water company.  The lottery also has a grants fund specially designed for community groups and the such http://www.localfoodgrants.org/ which could be an option for you in the future (they are closed currently for applications but have an email link so you can register for notification of new grants available).

[gremlin]

Stating the obvious here, but microscopic glass is such nasty stuff. Even sieving it will leave tiny flakes behind.

Toddlers love to garden with their hands and eat the soil of course (why not?), so I would create and reserve a few raised beds for toddlers with pure new soil that is totally glass free.

The older kids can be told to wear gloves, or not to dig in the natural soil using their hands. If they do and cut themselves - well that is part of the educational process !  (As is pruning gooseberries with bare hands.  I still haven't learnt that lesson.  Ouch.  )

Best of luck with your great project.