I took on a 2nd plot last autumn, which has a really serious marestail problem. I'd appreciate anyone's opinion whose had experience of this ghastly stuff on what I'm planning to do or whether its a non-starter.
This plot is truly ridden with marestail. An absolute carpet of the stuff; the plot has changed hands a number of times in recent years (I wonder why) and basically its completely out of control. Of the 2 neighbouring plots, one has it almost as bad, the other less so as its very actively managed by someone who is fighting a never ending war with it.
My plot has a couple of nice fruit trees, very well established at one end, which is one of the reasons why I took it on. Elsewhere it has a number of currant and gooseberries which in honesty are struggling (I guess due to the marestail); the remainder of the plot has been long ago divided into 20ft x 7ft beds now overgrown with the dreaded weed. Last autumn I 'cleared' a couple of these beds as a bit of an experiment. I dug them 1.5 spades deep and carefully got rid of every marestail root I could find. Obviously this inevitably left a small number. But I realised in doing this that deep down there was a mass of roots, like a layer about 2 ft down. It was unrealistic to be able to get rid of that. I've read elsewhere that marestail roots can go down several feet.
Anyhow I put some autumn-planting onions/garlic/shallots in one of these beds, the other I left unplanted till this spring when I put potatoes in. Result: this summer both beds now totally overridden with marestail, at least as bad as last year, and the crops I planted were basically a waste of time.
I dont believe its at all realistic to rid the plot of marestail given that even if I managed to dig it all out - an impossibility I feel - its in the ground all around the plot and just grows back in. And I know that attacking this with chemicals is basically a waste of time.
So what I'm thinking I'll do is use this plot almost entirely for soft fruit bushes and maybe some more fruit trees, and hope they can establish themselves despite the marestail. If I do this, once the bushes/trees are planted I can then cover over pretty much all the ground entirely with a double layer of mypex suppressant fabric or equivalent with just the trees and bush stems poking through. Then hopefully over time the marestail will weaken and it wont be especially hard to manage. When I plant the new bushes (autumn), to give them a fighting chance to establish themselves I'll carefully remove as much marestail as poss in the vicinity and dig in plenty of manure etc (marestail supposedly doesnt like rich soil).
Am I mad, or is this workable?