Allotment Gardening Advice Help Chat
Growing => Grow Your Own => Topic started by: Devondumpling on September 10, 2017, 08:52
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This is my first real post in the forum after a very warm welcome. I have done a fair amount of reading about plot clearing and just need a little help making the final decision on how we should go about clearing our plot. My wife and I are not exactly time rich as she works 32 hours a week, we own and manage a busy buisness and we have x2 young children so we need to go with an effective fast method of clearing our plot. Our plan is to concentrate our efforts over the winter on building an insulated pallet based shed, a descent green house, making pathways good and a large rainwater harvesting system with a view to begining our planting in febuary next year.
Anyway we are torn between 2 methods of clearing the site....
Number 1 being the organic route.....
Using our Stihl strimmer to cut everything right down to the ground then covering with cardboard followed by black DPM and weighing it down. We would then peel the DPM back gradually and dig the ground over and plant the plot out.
Number 2 woul be to spray the site with glyphosphate a few times (I have a lot left over from dealing with a bramble infestation) then rent a rotivator for a weekend and rotivate the site.
Ideally I would prefer to keep things organic but the most important thing is to get results quickly at this stage my biggest concern is that I know glyphosphate is a carcenogen and dont know if it will have an effect on anything grown on the site in the future??
Any suggestions or information anybody can offer at this stage would be greatly appreciated.
BTW i really wish I had the time to get stuck in with a fork and spade to clear the site but I just dont sadly.
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... but the most important thing is to get results quickly at this stage my biggest concern is that I know glyphosphate is a carcenogen ...
It's not thought to be a carcinogen now (unless you live in California) but there is no hard and fast evidence or opinion either way.
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I imagine that cardboard and black PPM are considered to be potentially carcinogenic by some Californians!
I'd definitely go down the glyphosate route
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All that strimmed green waste would rot down nicely under the weed suppressant over Winter, don't waste it. Systematic uncovering and digging over sounds good to me, whichever method you use to dig, mechanical or by hand. Uncovered ground soon repopulates with weeds, weedkiller or no.
I wouldn't let glyphosate within a million miles of my plot if I had the power that it's manufacturers do. There is possibly only one reason I would consider using something like glyphosate, and that is to deal with a stone wall being made dangerous by deeply rooted ivy, valerian or buddleia type plants.
One other thing, consider asking your nearby neighbours if they have any objections as there are immediate vicinity considerations.
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I would use glyphosate, but you need to get it on fairly soon while the weeds are still active, and with this current wind, it's not going to be possible for a while.
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I use glyphosate on a very rare occaision & did use it on my plot because of how bad it was but since you have time on your side, it being autumn soon, I would go with your first option as that way the weeds will be held at bay until you are able to deal with it. The only change I would make would be to suggest you put on plenty of manure on top of your cardboard, the worms will work it in for you under the membrane.