[silkie1]

Hi  Little Sweet peas
                            When I first got my plot i double dug before i planted
 anything  That means dig a trench and bury the couch grass a foot deep
then dig another trench and throw the top soil over the couch grass which should be buried upside down.It is hard work but it is worth it
                   Jim

[muntjac]

not sure you had couch  grass jim .mine will come up from the gates of hell to get me .  :shock:  same as mares tail we dug foundations for a new grain drying and procesing plant on the estate, the tail had root to 6 ft down in places .and this was suffolk plains grey clay

[Trillium]

I too doubt that was couch you were burying; you'd know it by those long, long white roots with very sharp tips that go to China. And if you dug up mature couch from only a spade's depth, even 2, then it's not likely couch. You can't bury it to kill it; you can't chop it up to kill it as it reroots every single bitty scrap. I had to dig my main plot almost a metre deep to pull out those dratted roots and sieved other parts, along with loads of bindweed mother roots way down deep. Think I'm finally on top of it all now, but wow, what an awful lot of digging.  :roll:

[toptonk]

i would not recomend burying it,it will only continue to grow.When i first got on my plot it had been left idle for about 6 years so you can imagine the amount that was in there. :cry:  :cry: What i did was to take all the surface weeds and grass off,we burned most of this.Then rough dug with a spade pulling out any stones and weeds,after this we went through with the fork two or three times pulling out any weeds that were missed the time before.You will never get rid of it totally but with hard work you can keep it down.  

[WG.]

not sure you had couch grass jim

I'd echo that - burying couch by 12 inches would be like transplanting.

[little sweetpeas]

Yesturday being a really sunny day got some digging done. Realised that the couch grass is more of problem the nearer I get to the paths that seperate the plots. So I guess it will keep haunting me forever even if my pot is cleared I can't do much about other peoples.

Thanks for all your advice

Marianne

[WG.]

So I guess it will keep haunting me forever even if my pot is cleared I can't do much about other peoples.

But see Aidy's post on swiss chard barrier. http://www.chat.allotment-garden.org/viewtopic.php?t=2674

[little sweetpeas]

Oh God! back to the plans again

Where in my crop rotation would Swiss Chard go.

[muntjac]

brasicas ,, and if you leave a nice neat edge trench  to your pathway and dig down a spit leaving it clear then the grass wont have such a free passage back to the plot

[Ray]

Can you drown couch grass? - Just wondered if there might be some good from all this rain?

[Trillium]

Can you drown couch grass? - Just wondered if there might be some good from all this rain?

Yes, in a bucket of water and weighed down. Leave for a few months to mush down and it makes a rich liquid fertilizer. See Bob Flowerdew's No Work Garden book, pg 47. Don't bother leaving it on any ground surface as the dratted stuff will simply turn its roots downward and start afresh. Have had it happen with couch, bindweed and dandelion until I started the bucket method. Good way to recycle unwanteds  

[Annie]

welcome Jim!Just noticed it was your 1st post.Keep on posting and enjoy the site.

[LILACSPLASH]

When I got mine it was riddled top to bottom with the stuff, trick is to let the soil dry anough to dig, then take up all the roots + top growth, unless there's something you want there! and burn the lot. You will be able to recognise couch grass roots, they're white and quite thick-burn it. Then spead the ashes and return some nutrients to the ground. After keep it weed free and if the soil is "loose" you will be able to carefully pull up any new growth, but you must do it often!
You could also do a pile and keep it in the dark - not working so far or bung in a barrel of water and use as plant food currently working on this one!

[frazzy]

Hi i  found this article hope it helps . www.gardenaction.co.uk/allotment/couch-grass-1.asp
my plot was riddled with it when i first took on my plot but its under control now its mostly now clear but i get the odd stuborn patch that rears its ugly head from time to time  but the only real way to get rid of it is to dig it out and burn the roots

[stompy]

My plot was covered, the council kindly rotavated it for me making it even worse  :cry: .

I got some glyphosate  :twisted:  that killed it after two aplications, just got to stop it spreading from the paths, so i'm lining the paths with old floorboards sunk into the ground.

I'm now trying to go organic no chemicals.