The previous homeowners had a pool in this spot. When we bought the house I cleared all the blackberry bushes around it and laid newspaper and started filling it with yard debris from cleaning up, leaves, chicken coop shavings and hay, compostable items and dirt from where I dug out our drainage areas. My goal was to do a giant lasagna method type bed and eventually use it as my garden since it gets great sun in that spot.. through the winter I have part of it covered with black plastic to kill the blackberry bushes trying to regrow... And I threw several pallets on top to keep the plastic from blowing away. If you were me... What would you do next? Will it take a couple years to break down and turn to usable dirt? Do I have to cover it all with topsoil in order for it to turn to a plantable area? My neighbor said it won't do anything but rot unless I go out and stir it up... But the area is so large in its has so much wet leaves and chicken House shavings it would be a huge job without machinery... what is the quickest way to turn this into a usable Garden area?
Of course it will rot. It's supposed to decompose. That's what will turn into soil! Silly neighbor. I think it will do just fine. Lots of people do lasagna gardens. @tiredmama has one and it is weed free!
You could put the chickens to work. They will stir up the compost by digging around in it :)
I am facing massive blackberry bush clean up on my land in Upper Michigan. We have so many it looks to be quite the undertaking. We don't want them all gone but want to tame them to be easier to access.
There will be some experimenting with how to do this. One method that we will use is burning them in the fall.
They are tough because whatever you do it makes them tougher. They will keep trying to come back. So our method will be to burn them and continue to mow those areas to keep them at bay. But covering them for years is not in my future.
Hope this was a bit of help. #powertothepeople #stickittotheman