[Sheriff Sprout]

hi everyone before now i havnt faced an alotment which is grass all over,my question is do i just rotavate (plough) the grass into the soil thus giving nutrients to the soil or do i have to get rid of the retched weed. i know its probably a simple question to ask but I am the new kid on the block.
   thanks
allot ment

[Bombers]

Hi Sheriff Sprout, Welcome to the forums.
See the Who's right thread, just beneath this one,. same subject i think.    

[DD.]

Hi Sheriff Sprout, Welcome to the forums.
See the Who's right thread, just beneath this one,. same subject i think.    

Threads move about, Bombers! As I view this, it's five above this one. When I hit the submit button, it'll be below it again!

Here's the direct link.......

http://www.chat.allotment-garden.org/viewtopic.php?t=26246

[Sheriff Sprout]

morning all
well thats a suprise seeing replys so early in the day,
many thanks to you,
I ll have a good look on the forum later.
lesson learnt: look at the other questions asked before posting  

[PinkTequila]

I will anwer on this thread just because you did say plough or rotavate, the two are not the same. If you can plough very good, but rotavate does not do the job as well. Therefore plough... yes rotavate... no

[Aidy]

Gonna stick up for the rotovate army here, and I know little Shaun will do too. Once you get used to rotovating and use a system that criss crosses across the plot and you are able to do it a regular then it will take most of the work out for you, the frogs have been doing it for years, I adopted one of their systems on a plot that I had for 4 years, within two years of rotovating it was clear and even horsetail rarely reared its ugly head, the idea is to turn before the plant reaches its optimum height for storing energy, I believe it is around two to three inches, up to this point it is using stored energy so if you turn this it will slowly exhaust it self. You will also need to turn the ground over slowly, don't full throttle it, by going slow with the tines it will rip the root up in large chunks, therefore raking over after makes it easy to get the root up for burning. No plant likes being turned over and over and this is a good time of year to do it.

[Sheriff Sprout]

well thanks DD  aidy and pink tequilla for your op onions
that sounds like a great idea about rotavating aidy. ploughing means i have to get the horse all strapped up and get that wooden wedge from the shed.
Ive been reading the posts above.  maybe a few ltrs of round up should do the trick with some membrane then some more roundup. what do you think?
go for the natural way or chemical way??
thanks again all

[Yorkie]

Natural versus chemical is entirely a matter of choice for you, but glyphosate is unlikely to be that effective at this time of year, as it needs the plant to be growing.

If you plan to use glyph, I'd wait until the weeds are growing again.

[Sheriff Sprout]

Ok I have done my investigations and:
its a toss up between
1) expensive chemicals to clear the grassed area, also growing vegatables on ground which contains glyphosate :cry:
2) rotavating the ground criss cross fasion, :?
3) using a membrane to block light out, :?

its only grass im killing here

here are my points of view:

1) because of the time of the year, nearing winter period the temprature may be to low for the chemical to work.
2) rotavating seems to have good and bad points, weeds returning soon after rotavation.
3) we have all seen what complete light depravation can do to plants/weeds I have never seen if it completely kills off any growth over a long term.

if anyone could shed any light on the points above I would be most grateful  
thankyou
ahh one more point I havnt mentioned.
The plot is about 5m x 30m  = 150 sqm

[rhian13]

hello

I'm in a similar situation with grass.......our site representative said to cut down the taller grass, dig down to root depth & remove the layer of couch grass, roots and all, make a pile (the turf facing inwards) that will make a lovely compost. So I've dug out two beds, and left grass for paths, and have a heap........

mulching - light deprivation does work, but I think it takes a while - a year or two for really bad perennial weeds, but it does stop growth in the meantime for digging another day. I was tempted to do this on part of my plot, but the plastic sheeting is quite expensive. Mulching can be done with cardboard, overlapping, dampened and weighed down -its getting enough for something allotment sized though (it worked really well in my garden). I plan to mulch/use green manures in the beds I've prepared to help combat the grass returning. Otherwise the grass will grow quicker than I can dig  :oops: