[lcarduk]

Hi. I have a largish plot, most of it is overgrown with grass/weeds. The grass is tall now, maybe between 1 to 2ft in places.

Due to not having much time I want to do whatever is the easiest/quickest for me to clear this area (quickest for my time not quickest to clear it!). From reading online I thought I would cover it with weed fabric and hope its cleared by next spring.

But should I be cutting the grass down short before covering it? Cant find any info about this online. I dont want to because I have a battery trimmer and I think it will take me about 10 to 15 recharges/trips to trim the whole plot. And as I dont have much time I would think this would take me weeks/months to do before I even lay the fabric. So I was just going to cover them as they are thinking they would die off the same.

Thanks!

[cadalot]

The problem is going to be the weeds and grass holding the weed membrane up off the ground which is what you really want it to do. if the weather allows get as much cut as possible. Cut any weed membrane with a soldering iron and weld the cut and the membrane will not fray, I wasted a lot of membrane first year by just cutting with scissors.

My brother in law and I have both just taken on our  second plots. He has strummed all his new plot and is going to rotavate, and he will cut all that couch grass into 2" lengths that will grow like mad next year. He is going to cover the whole plot with weed membrane and then cut out holes for the beds.

Me I left the weed tall as they were easier to pull out when digging and I'm systematically clearing the plot by hand and then covering it Up.

I'm working from the tall weed end, the short weed end will get covered to kill weeds and keep the ground dry by covering with visqueen, plastic sheeting. That way I can uncover an area at a time and dig over the winter months as it will not get too saturated that I would be doing more harm than good working it.


   

[lcarduk]

Ok thanks, I think I will give it a go at trimming the grass then, think it will take ages though! Might get a spare battery for the trimmer.

thinking of putting membrane down instead of plastic, even though I have read about that same amount of posts to use plastic compared to the same amount to use membrane! Sounds like there is no one that is better than the other, both have advantages and disadvantages. I might walk around the site to see what the majority of other experts are using.

[cadalot]

Membrane lets the water get through were as plastic keeps the area it's covering dry (ish) so you can work it over winter by uncovering, I will use a mixture of both during the working on but once the infrastructure is done I will use membrane over the beds.

I had loads of carpet on my first plot that was under a bed of weeds and I used that on my first allotment until the end of the first year when I invested in weed membrane and I have some sheets with pre formed holes that I plant through to keep the moisture in and the weed out of the beds.

See http://chat.allotment-garden.org/index.php?topic=100234.0 for my first plot from taking it over 3 years ago.