[littlelisa]

About a third of my plot is fairly overgrown - probably about a foot high, some couch grass and other weeds. Please can anyone give practical tips about covering up a weedy area and growing through the sheet mulching?  I'm a bit confused about how to do it:
- Do you need to cut down the weeds before covering it up?
- What happens to their roots?
- I have lots of horse manure - is it ok to spread this under the sheeting? Or do I need a different kind of manure?
- I would like to grow pumpkins, squash and cucumber through the sheeting - do you grow in the earth that's under the sheeting, or do you grow in a layer placed over it?

(Sorry for any thoroughly clueless questions!)

[compostqueen]

you can grow your courgettes, pumpkins and squashes just in poo.  You can put it in containers, bin bags or just mound it up and plant in the top. Folks on our plots use their muck and compost heaps for growing them in, and some bung a plant in each of their black dalek bins which look great with a lovely courgette growing out the top  

If you grow on the ground you can put cardboard over the weedy soil which will keep the weeds at bay long enough for you to harvest a crop.  You can get new big pieces of cardboard from the local electrical shop, or out of skips  

You can grow spuds in this way too.  Strawbs don't mind growing in manure either.  I grew sweetcorn just in manure but it needs mounding up as it's so tall it can just flop over, specially in breezy weather

[Trillium]

You'd need to spread heavy black plastic over the intended area and wait about a year for all the growth to die beneath.
Then you can plant.

I doubt this is what you hoped for, so you might want to  decide where you'll plant things and clear those spots of weeds (dig them out), lay the plastic everywhere, slash at the dug spots and plant. You'll need to water your plants regularly as the plastic wouldn't allow water to seep through. Poking holes in the plastic would only encourage weeds to force through.

I don't know many people who bother with this method as its a long wait. Better off to plastic an intended area in fall and by spring you should see some clearance.

[woodburner]

Black plastic isn't cheap, even the relatively cheap source I found online isn't as cheap as Wilko's ground cover fabric I haven't actually used it yet so cannot report on it's relative effectiveness, yet. I gave up proper digging after my first allotment, and have used a variety of mulches to clear ground, it's a very effective method with minimal risk of injury. It works by depriving the plants of light without which they gradually use up their resources, and eventually die altogether, even couch grass and thistles. The only reason I can see for cutting down the weeds first is so that the mulch can be laid more easily.
This year for the first time I am growing on top of or through the mulch. I have planted spuds on top of cardboard, (several thicknesses of newspaper would have done too) spread thickly with well rotted manure, as per the Organic Gardening handbook. I reckon that even if the spuds fail I will have at least prepared the ground perfectly for another set of beds next spring.  
If I get the allotment I have been shown I will be planting brassicas, through holes in cardboard and mulch fabric.
If you are using plastic or mulch fabric (or carpet) any manure or soil improver needs to go down first, as you will need to remove the mulch later. If you use newspaper I'd recommend putting the manure on top, to keep the paper in place, cardboard is easier to hold down with pots and things so it doesn't matter whether it goes on top or underneath. HTH

[compostqueen]

potatoes will grow well. Mine did fab. Once the foliage is in full leaf you can't see any unsightly mulch or cardboard     I think the secret of no dig is making plenty of homemade compost so you always have some planting medium to use as is or mix with lotty soil or muck.  I keep sheets of cardboard to hand too, which makes good cover for muddy paths as well as a mulch

I mowed my lotty weeds with my petrol mower to get them down so I could lay some cardboard and sheet mulch.  Slower than glyphos I grant you  

[gobs]

About a third of my plot is fairly overgrown - probably about a foot high, some couch grass and other weeds. Please can anyone give practical tips about covering up a weedy area and growing through the sheet mulching?  I'm a bit confused about how to do it:
- Do you need to cut down the weeds before covering it up?
- What happens to their roots?
- I have lots of horse manure - is it ok to spread this under the sheeting? Or do I need a different kind of manure?
- I would like to grow pumpkins, squash and cucumber through the sheeting - do you grow in the earth that's under the sheeting, or do you grow in a layer placed over it?

(Sorry for any thoroughly clueless questions!)

The plan is a good one. Refinements. As you have access to manure, even easier. Ignore the fabric thing, cut the weeds down and hoe deeply - you'll need a trench hoe or an asada for this -, let them dry in the sun, mulch thickly with manure, about 2-4 inch. Plant in ground through this, taking care that manure does not come close to foliage, leave a couple of inch clearance at least. Won't be full proof, but works, doesn't cost much and you have a crop of all those mentioned.

Hoe again as the manure is decaying, if have time can start digging up some naughty weeds that are going through at this stage, should not get much, as all these plants have cracking dense foliage.

 

[Salkeela]

I wrote about starting my plot with cardboard and compost in Dec 2006 on another forum.  I may have copied into another thread here at sometime - so sorry if it's repetition for you.  Anyway hope it helps!  

As recommended to me in an earlier thread... and in keeping with my desire to grow veg for the family next year.

The project begins...

.....this is the first little corner to be trialled with the cardboard and compost technique!



Son put to work










Finished....



Just debating covering it with black material... I have a roll, but it's only a metre wide - may investigate wider stuff.

Apparently it's best to grow spuds in this first year.  I'll probably have to do something to stop the grass creeping in from the side.....  (but OH will be in charge of that project.)

What do you think!

Edited later to move pics and comments to top of the thread

Boards were added round the first bed before Christmas.

And today OH took a notion to make a second bed (narrower this time -we decided the first was probably wider than optimum).

Horse manure on this one straight out of the stable (although the stable hasn't be occupied for some time so there was some maturing in situ!)





And a pretty photo of the greenhouse the other morning!


Sal

And this was the one year on verdict
1 year on and a quick update!

These beds were very successful!

I put potatoes on top of the manure and covered them in old hay and got a cracking crop from 3 varieties.

2 short rows of peas gave a good harvest (although next year I will rig up taller supports!)

And masses of onions. I put newspaper over the compost, weighted it with sand and planted the seedling onions through the paper. Worked really well to keep seedling weeds down until the onions got away. We're still eating our own onions now. (Need do do more next year).

Anyway thought folk would like to know.... we're talking of starting another bed... hadn't realised we'd made these ones so early last year.