sod shed

I want to built a sod shed this summer and i'm not sure how to start it.Any advice

charles johnson "carbonout" wrote:
I want to built a sod shed this summer and i'm not sure how to start it.Any advice

Yes.  Make sure you have a lot of sod available.

I'm serious.  It's easy for us to forget that when the settlers came to the Midwest, they were dealing with grassy areas that had centuries to develop root systems.  Made it a real pain trying to plow.  You really could cut blocks of sod 4 inches thick that were solid lumps of dirt and roots.

So before starting, make sure that you can hack out blocks of sod that are thick enough to make it worth your while. 

(This is in line with the computer troubleshooter whose first question is "Are you sure the device is plugged into the wall, and that the outlet has power?"  Been burned on that one more often than I care to admit.)

so 2" or more of roots?

charles johnson "carbonout" wrote:
so 2" or more of roots?

I'd say 2 inches at the bare minimum.

one thing to consider here though its no the best industry to encourage is that one can purchase rather nice sod pre cut and stacked on pallets from the big home improvement stores, the advantage here being you don't have to rip up your own ground and you get a nice solid root base, on the other hand what you get is used to fertilizer and chemical weed controland may take a while to adapt but it has a nice organic matrix.

another possible replacement for sod that strikes me is to sandwich a few layers of burlap and soil/ compost, with any luck the grass roots will have spread nicely by time the burlap rots.

The folks who settled the prairies and built their own sod houses cut their sod at least 4 inches thick, sometimes as thick as six inches. I have no idea where a person is going to be able to get something like that these days. The best grass came from areas close to streams.

They laid the sod grass side down, dirt up. They laid at two to three rows side by side with the joints staggered to improve tightness. Thickness of the walls were in the 2.5 to 3 foot range. Doors and windows were framed with 2x12 planks. Once they completed the walls they shaved them with a sharp shovel and packed the removed dirt into any areas that needed filling.

I've seen sod houses Saskatchewan and Nebraska (National Historic Sites)

old photo
They used a special plow that cut the sod and then gently turned it over for pickup.

@mtnDon, that is so cool!  I wonder if they used something that had been adapted from the Irish "clamping turf", i.e., cutting blocks of peat.

I don'r remember the details on the plow, but it was made for this job.

Sod houses (soddies) links of interest...

http://theautry.org/explore/exhibits/sod/daily.html

http://www.shawnature.org/about/sodhouse.aspx

http://lilyk.tripod.com/d_Sod.html

thanks for the info, lets hope my roots run deep

ive been seeing lots of free sod around this time of year with people tearing up the lawn for other things. Have to keep an eye on CL

hmm well the reason for the shed was not only storage but also to remove some dirt from around my house