Allotment Gardening Advice Help Chat
Growing => Grow Your Own => Topic started by: BuddingGrower on January 21, 2014, 17:01
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Hi,
Hope everyone is having a good January, not too set back by the cold snap!
I explained in an older post about my plot - it's lain dormant for years and I cleared it and dug it up in November last year to try and revive it for growing again.
Anyway, it was largely left over December to let the frost get at it. However, a load of green shoots appeared in January, most likely ground elder. What is the best approach to take with these? I forked over half of it today, to bury the shoots under the soil, then realised I probably just buried the seeds/roots even deeper and this may not have been the best approach!
Is it better to let them grow a little bigger and pull them out? Or perhaps to just cut the tops off with a hoe?
Thanks,
T
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there are a few ways with ground elder either smother it for 12 months at least with cardboard or membrane, or dig it out, you will aways find a little comes back and you need to repeat and spraying which i don't do cus i'm organic.
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You can also eat it.
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Most perennial plants, by definition, regrow every year whether the foliage dies back in winter or not - in theory a perennial which is repeatedly hoed off to destroy the top growth will eventually give up, but not necessarily before you do! :nowink:
Ground Elder is very tough and persistent, and needs to be dug out thoroughly (like couch grass, it can regenerate from the smallest root fragment.)
An alternative is to try a glyphosate-based weedkiller when it starts to regrow, although it may well take more than one application and therefore put the area out of commission for most of the season.
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Yes, it is edible... in fact it was imported as a food plant which escaped.
We had it in our garden when we first moved here. I dug out as much as I could and then covered the area with membrane, with bark chips on top for a year. No little shoots after that :lol:
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We had it in our garden when we first moved here. I dug out as much as I could and then covered the area with membrane, with bark chips on top for a year. No little shoots after that :lol:
Really?? It didn't reappear? That's amazing. But that would mean no veg for the whole year... I don't know if I can face that. Can I just continue as usual and hoe it off as it appears? I'm still digging out the plot on a continual basis before I plant anything so I will carry on digging out as much off the GE as I can.
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It's my favourite worst and most evil weed that one - decidedly more trouble that bindweed, dandelions and nettles. The roots must come out. There are no two ways round it so far as I know. You have either to dig every last bit out or to spray it. If you spray it, buy a glyphosate based weedkiller neat (not ready mixed) and then apply this stronger than the recommended mix making sure to get the green growth. That's from experience working in other people's gardens over a number of years.
At least be glad it's not mare's tail. :D
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Luckily :unsure: i wasn't an organic gardener when I took over my garden so I just blitzed everything with glyphosate to begin with so everything was killed.The secret is with glyphosate is to let it have enough time to really get down into the roots before cultivating so that it does get time to kill them completely.Up to six weeks if you can wait.It also works best and at it's quickest when the weeds are really growing after the weather has warmed up.
I'm afraid its a stark choice.Inorganic-quicker results.Organic-cover for a year and be prepared for some still to make a reappearance.
I'd go for chemicals first,convert latter :D