laying paving slabs in the allotment

[Seal Island Girl]

Hi, I have some raised veg beds in the garden, which are currently surrounded by grass paths. I'd like to get rid of the grass, and have a mixture of slabs surrounded with gravel/possibly some small alpine plants growing here and there. It's not a heavy traffic area, but I'm wondering about the best way to lay it.
My thoughts were to dig up the grass, lay some membrane down, and use sand on top where I'm putting slabs? This would be good for the gravel, but didn't know if it would be good for the slabs, unless I cut the membrane away for underneath the slabs? Any ideas much appreciated!

 

[r896neo]

The main problem with this approach is the different thicknesses. You should aim for you gravel to be 50mm thick but your paving slab could be anywhere from 22mm to 50mm and you will need to lay it on a 30-50mm bed of mortar not just sand. So if you simply lay the slab on the membrane flag+bedding will likely be 90mm-ish whereas the gravel needs to be 50mm.

I would lay the flags first and cut your membrane around them. Or forget the membrane and use 50mm of compacted hardcore instead with your gravel on top. I find gravel.on sub base is easier to maintain than gravel on a membrane.

Wheeling a barrow on deep gravel is very unpleasant so keep it to 50mm max.

 

[Seal Island Girl]

Thanks for your reply, I hadn't considered the difference in thicknesses needed (Have not done a lot of this type of diy!). Thankfully it's a fairly small area at the bottom of the garden, so I won't be using a wheel barrow. The grass I have at the moment is nice and soft for kneeling on, but a pain to mow round the beds!

 

[HawkEye244]

neo a lot of allotment sites have a no sub-base policy. In otherwords you cannot put anything in the ground that cannot be easily removed. Hardcore would count as a sub-base. I recently built a small patio area to mine for a pub bench to go and I used 30-50mm sand on compacted ground with slabs laid on top. The soil is clay. So long as the ground is compacted down well with a roller or punner the sand will be strong enough to hold the slabs without the need for hardcore. Of course the top soil will need to be removed, all weed etc.

Personally? I would not use slabs for the paths I would mow the grass and not be lazy. If you don't want grass put down a organic weed suppressant like woodchip or bark chips ontop of a few layers of cardboard or newspaper. This will last 1-2 years before requiring another application.

 

[r896neo]

Hi, I have some raised veg beds in the garden,

 

[Seal Island Girl]

The veg beds are in my garden, not on an allotment site, so any cement/hardcore I use is not an issue. As to being lazy about mowing the grass, that is not the case at all. It's more to do with wanting to make my veg bed area look good as it's in my own garden.

 

[London Mike 49]

How about gravel/hogging as a pathway http://www.pavingexpert.com/gravel01.htm

Mike

 

[HawkEye244]

''laying paving slabs in the allotment'' as a thread title confused the issue. It's not an allotment you have it's a garden.

 

[Nige F]

It's a veg patch. The paths were traditionally bare earth with cinders put down.