[gavinjconway]

Oh no... I'm gutted... I'm digging up my asparagus patch as I'm plagued with mares tail because of the non digging over of the soil and removing the blighters each year. This year it's 3 times what I had last year!! So I'm doubling my sweetcorn instead. It has such good value for money v space usage and freezes well. I already have SH2 seed sown so I need to keep to SH2.. Just ordered another 6 packets from www.seedparade.co.uk so will have enough germinated seedlings in 4 weeks time to plant out another 150 odd plants beside the other 150!! Woo hoo...

Oh BTW - yes we love our sweet corn..

[boddy]

you have my sympathy, mares/horse tail is my biggest crop!!! I coming through my spuds, my onions, raspberries well ever crop really, it even in the greenhouse!

[DD.]

I'm doing the same after I've cropped this year. The patch is just a mass of Mare's Tail.

For future reference, Moles Seeds are much cheaper than Seed Parade for sweetcorn, Gavin.

Moles Seeds Sweetcorn

[diospyros]

Oh BTW - yes we love our sweet corn..

Do you have a way of preserving it or do you eat it all fresh?

[gavinjconway]

We eat loads fresh and every time we cook we do extra and slice the corn off the cobs and freeze. it lasts for over a year no problem. Just re-heat, add some butter and it's as good as fresh..

[gavinjconway]

you have my sympathy, mares/horse tail is my biggest crop!!! I coming through my spuds, my onions, raspberries well ever crop really, it even in the greenhouse!

Where I dig each year it does come back but not as rampant as the asparagus bed this year.. Its got really bad and assume it will do the same wherever I dont dig for years... so out the asparagus comes!!

[gavinjconway]

I'm doing the same after I've cropped this year. The patch is just a mass of Mare's Tail.

For future reference, Moles Seeds are much cheaper than Seed Parade for sweetcorn, Gavin.

Moles Seeds Sweetcorn

Thanks DD... glad you  feel the same way.

[AnneB]

We have mare's tail on our plot too.   We will have had our plot 4 years this September and we are finally almost rid of it.  We have had to keep digging it out.   We have also had to sieve all of our soil before putting it back into the beds as besides the mare's tail, the ground was full of broken glass and other nasty additions.   It was terribly hard work at the time but has paid dividends.  We only get an occasional wispy bit which is now whipped away.   Still I haven't planted asparagus.   Our daughter has a plot now at the bottom of the site, which she has had for 8 weeks.  It is free of mare's tail, but has couch grass and bindweed instead.   I am persuading her that she would really like an asparagus bed!

[Nobbie]

I only got my plot last year and there is marestail on it, but I've planted an asparagus bed anyway and will have to keep a close eye on it to catch any bits early.

Good idea on freezing, previously I've frozen the whole cob which is a pain to thaw before cooking, or you bite into a partially frozen cob

[BabbyAnn]

I've had the current plot coming up to 7 years - it used to be covered in marestail, in very heavy clay.  Despite digging loads of stuff into the soil over the years, there are clods which I try to break up because guaranteed, that is where some viable root is lurking 

I kept one big patch of the plot under black plastic for as long as I dared, and to my dismay after 4 years, there was still viable root.  However, it would be true to say that covering it for that length of time definitely weakened them and the patch is more or less marestail free now.

[RaptorUK]

I've had the current plot coming up to 7 years - it used to be covered in marestail, in very heavy clay.

Marestail  or Horsetail ?

[AnneB]

I've had the current plot coming up to 7 years - it used to be covered in marestail, in very heavy clay.

Marestail  or Horsetail ?

It's the same thing.  It's Latin name is Equisetum Arvense.  Terrible stuff.

[ConfusedGardener]

How deep do the roots go? Would a layer of weed suppressant membrane a couple of feet under the surface stop them?

We have a patch on our land close to where we are planning to dig some beds, but I think we can do it so that the paths go where the mares tail are for the most part.

Having said that, I'm keen to keep a small patch of it going out of the way of the beds since it can be cut, dried, ground up to a powder, and used as a soil amendment - it's rich in silica which the veggies take up and incorporate into their cell walls making them more resistant to disease/pests.

[grendel]

I have always had marestail on the plot, however after 3 years there is less of it, mostly in my belief due to constant rotovation and pulling it up when it appears in the beds, by not allowing it to get very big the roots get starved out as they don't get a chance to poke shoots skyward, they have to use the nutrients in the root to shoot up the next set of foliage, constant rotovation has made the root pieces quite small and they can only manage a few attempts at foliage before their reserves are exhausted - I know this goes against all normal advice with marestail, but it seems to be working for me at the moment.
Grendel

[andy dewar]

i put weed suppressing mat down for my strawberry bed but it still came through , the only way iv read to get rid is to keep digging it out and weakening it until it finally dies it is mind blowing stuff