[Paulj]

Just a quick update:

In the end I perservered with the digging.  I'm now 90% of the way there with 2 mammoth sessions. 

The last section is mostly couch grass and I think nettles growing in and around an establised asparagus bed.  I was speaking to a few of the other plotholders who said weedkiller would be the safest way to go with the nettles and grass in the asparagus bed so as not to disturb it too much.

The digging actually seemed to get easier as the roots of various weeds seemed to be particularly worse on one side of the plot than the other, and eventually became a lot sparser, at which point I seemed to find a lot of metal screws.

It all felt more worthwhile when one of the committee people happened to walk by and said it looks really good - nothing like a pat on the back and a bit of encouragement!

[Aunt Sally]

You've done a good job, Paul.

Just imagine how proud you'll be as you lean on your hoe and gaze over your wonderful crops saying: "I did that"

[Paulj]

You've done a good job, Paul.

Just imagine how proud you'll be as you lean on your hoe and gaze over your wonderful crops saying: "I did that"

I was already there after I finished my last digging session! 

[surbie100]

Read this with interest as I'm faced with roughly 40% of my plot to clear this year. And that 40% is a combination of grass, couch, bindweed and bramble. Plus some creeping buttercup, blackthorn and a few docks for variety.

Are you covering as you go or leaving open to the elements?

[Paulj]

I'd left it all open to the elements, as I had no way of covering, and couldn't justify the expense of that either.  My plot was similar, but I tackled most of the weeds above the surface before Christmas as they had mostly died so were easy to get rid of.

The hard work really came with the bigger roots that wouldn't pull up until digging, and dealing with all the long straggly roots of the bindweed/couch grass. Sometimes it was a downright pain, at others when it was slightly easier to pull up it was almost therapeutic!

[grendel]

well having started hand digging and seemingly getting nowhere (an hours work seems to not dent the ocean), today the rotovator was once again running fairly reliably (until a problem with the float vibrating loose reared its head) so the plot was once more treated to a quick run over, fortunately over  winter I just seem to have acquired a layer of grass and clover, so here is an hours work on the plot before and after.
Grendel

[stainesbloke]

Hi Paul, sounds like you have been working hard! Am in a similar situation to you, have managed to manually dig over half of my new plot getting rid of lots of couch roots and dandelions etc in the process. Am wondering now whether to continue digging (hasn't been doing my lower back ANY good lol) or just rotavating/glysophating the rest of the plot? Will probably rotavate the whole plot just to speed things up a bit, putting down lots of compost/manure at the same time. Whatever happens, I think hoeing will be the essential, regular job to do over the growing season. All the best with your plot, hope its a success!