Allotment Gardening Advice Help Chat
Growing => Grow Your Own => Topic started by: Weed on August 24, 2008, 18:54
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Hi.
I have a fairly new plot which I am slowly recovering from the wilderness. I have already managed to turn the soil once, but now due to an impending house move, I was thinking of covering parts with black plastic to kill of new weed growth etc. before manuring... has anyone tried this? If so I'd welcome any feed back on how successful this is and how long (weeks/ months) it would take to kill off any growth and roots.
Cheers
Tom
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IMHO if you are going to compost the piece of land I would not bother to cover as the weeds will grow anyway on bare soil
most weeds are ok to dig back in anyway
for the most persistent perrenial weeds you would need to cover it for up to a year to kill them off! especially stuff like horsetail if you have it
So if you are going to turn it over take out the bad weeds as you do it.
Better still green manure it with a broadcast of mustard and it will bloom in no time and block out the weeds (some of em)
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Playing Devils advocate I would be tempted to use Roundup first then manure. It kills everything including the roots. Then I would use as few chemicals as possible. I am not an organic gardener.
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Cheers Folks.
Ice I have thought about using roundup but Im hoping to be organic as possible....That may change.
The green cover I've removed already luckily enough was mostly grass, bramble and nettle...with the odd plant or two which i could not identify. I dont think i came across any horsetail.
M0rph3u5
I take it that the mustard will give good ground cover then? I've heard of green manuring.....I take it teh mustard you refer to is just ordinary mustard seed??
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Weed, I had taken on a plot at the beginning of last year which hadn't been worked for a number of years. I started digging it over only to watch the weeds sprout up within no time at all. I did spray it all with roundup to begin with but the perennials such as horsetail kept on coming. I decided to give the black weedproof membrane a go and it made a huge difference. It means that you can cover areas and concentrate on a few beds at a time without worrying about the rest of it getting out of hand. I had the areas covered for a few months at a time and I cover any beds that are going to be empty for a while. What I have noticed that after a year or so there are far less weeds and it's much eaasier to keep it all under control.
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Thank Greg
So you've found that over a period of time teh plastic has helped reduce if anything the amount of weeds returning?
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Cover what isn't going to be in immediate use. It deff helps keep the weeds under control till you can dig them out... and gives you a chance to get other parts of the the properly sorted. I found it the best way to manage my plot, when I got it, as I choose not to spray.
Good luck with your plot :)
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I think once you weaken the perennial weeds then the rest is easy. I still get some horestail coming through and the odd other unwanted weed but there's a huge difference when compared with last year. When I take the cover off I'll dig over the ground and rake off any roots that are there. If any weeds start to grow they are already weakened and can be easily weeded out.
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Thanks for that.
I think thats what im going to do.
Ive started to dig up the worst of it, and ill cover whats not in use. I might rotate it about hopefully help kill off what i've dug.
Apart from that i now have the other side of my plot fenced off...a productive day in all...Im knackerd and I've been crucified by the nettles. A couple of pints are required.
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I think once you weaken the perennial weeds then the rest is easy. I still get some horestail coming through and the odd other unwanted weed but there's a huge difference when compared with last year. When I take the cover off I'll dig over the ground and rake off any roots that are there. If any weeds start to grow they are already weakened and can be easily weeded out.
Yes, this is exactly what we have found to be the case. Compared to when we got the plot last year, we've managed to get rid of most of the problem stuff., using the black plastic, then digging out method.The annual weeds are running amok at present, but they're so easy to remove (if the rain ever stops) they really aren't a problem to deal with. When you see GREEN taking over the plot, it's disheartening, so even for that reason, covering up is a good idea. Makes clearing a new plot seem less daunting. Worked for us :D
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If you want to be really green, you can use cardboard sheet (broken down packing cases work pretty well). Anything that excludes all light will kill any weed as long as it is there for long enough. The nice thing about cardboard is that it rots down into humus in a few months.
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Yes, cardboard (thick layers) are great for that purpose ... but it just looks sooooooooo messy. I had it down before the black stuff, but it really did look a mess :shock:
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hia
i got some black membrane sheeting from a builders yard! did cost me £20 but its worked and will last quite some time.
i sprayed with round up first then I put the sheet down, now i've cut the sheet up and covered beds with it until i'm ready to work on them.
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If you do apply roundup, you need to leave the plants uncovered for a couple of weeks in order to let the weedkiller work, before covering the plants. If you put the cover on straightaway, you'll reduce the plant action which enables the weedkiller to work, and you'll end up just relying on the covering to kill the weeds (works but much more slowly imho).
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Another point ive discovered about black plastic is that the best stuff is that plastic used to wrap pallets, because its specially made to block ultraviolet light, whereas a lot of off the shelf domestic plastic doesn't do that.
The other point is that large areas of black plastic dry out the soil, so when you dig it the soil falls out the dry root clumps like dust, making it a lot lighter work.
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Cheers folks. I started to dig it over, so ill cover it as i go along. Ive managed to get my hands on some building plastic ...should do the trick.