What would you do?

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Janeymiddlewife

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What would you do?
« on: April 29, 2009, 22:02 »
I posted about this a week or so ago, had another look at my seed beds today - bl*%%y grass!!
I can hoe out the weeds and hand weed around my teeny carrots & beetroot because they're easy to spot - have given up all hope on the chard, salsify & snips.
Everything is in 2 beds about 10foot by 3, covered with debris netting on water pipe hoops & bamboo, weighted down with wood battens on the edge of the netting. it looks very nice, but it's a pain to get to for weeding.
Even if I pull out the loose weeds, and I removed as much of the roots as I could when prepping the beds, all that's happening now is that all the bits of grass seed that were left on the soil for 2 years are now germinating and i can't easily hoe what's looking increasingly like a lawn!
So should I just hoe what I can, leave the grass for now & hope survival of the fittest kicks in (in which cas I think the grass will win) or - glyphosate it, cover it & leave it til next year  :( or fork it over again to remove as much of the grass ( and seedlings  :(  ), and replant minus the hoops so I can nuke the weeds & grass as soon as they appear this time - or is there any other alternative so I can have a few carrots & snips later this year?

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mumofstig

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Re: What would you do?
« Reply #1 on: April 29, 2009, 22:22 »
some people advise making your seedbed and leaving the first crop of annual weeds to grow, so they can be hoed off before any planting/sowing is done, but i don't think it would help where there is a lot of weeds.
No good glyphosating that will kill what's growing, but not the seeds waiting to germinate.
Think you just have to persevere weeding as much as you can by hand and hoe...
and you now know the problem of netting. It saves the weeds as well as the carrots :mad:
Hopefully you will soon get to the stage that germination of the weedseeds slows down a bit. Don't get too downhearted ;)

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peapod

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Re: What would you do?
« Reply #2 on: April 29, 2009, 22:27 »
Its a real pain when you cant get down to the plot as much as you want to to hand weed. I gave my beds a good hoe and hand on Sunday,but when I get down on Friday (weather permitting) I bet they have all shot up again....including some grass. The best thing to do is just keep on top of it as much as you can
"I think the carrot infinitely more fascinating than the geranium. The carrot has mystery. Flowers are essentially tarts. Prostitutes for the bees. There is, you'll agree, a certain je ne sais quoi oh so very special about a firm young carrot" Withnail and I

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noshed

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Re: What would you do?
« Reply #3 on: April 29, 2009, 23:04 »
It's a war of attrition, there is no final solution. Just do what you can. The chard is pretty hefty so I wouldn't fret about that. The others are roots which will keep going OK. When they're a bit bigger you can get more vicious with the weeding.
Self-sufficient in rasberries and bindweed. Slug pellets can be handy.

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Janeymiddlewife

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Re: What would you do?
« Reply #4 on: April 29, 2009, 23:12 »
Thanks for your encouragement all! I suppose what is nagging is that I am slap bang next to the row rep who has a beautifully kept plot, dead straight rows, not a weed in sight - they wouldn't dare  :tongue2:  I will just have to keep looking to the left at my neighbour's plot which is more like I think mine will be - a mixture of some bang up to date weeded, partially ignored and abandoned areas  :D  Someone please tell me spuds don't need weeding :blink:  Strangely enough, no one else on my side of the row is using any netting other than on soft fruit, and I have been told several times that there isn't really a problem with the dreaded fly, so perhaps I'll save the netting for me brassicas!

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RichardA

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Re: What would you do?
« Reply #5 on: April 29, 2009, 23:22 »
I have got a bit of couch grass from digging over ex orchard grass land that is now coming up amongst and between several very good rows of peas. I intend shielding peas each side and then  spraying between the rows in hope it follows the leaves and finds the roots. I have about 2 foot of space between each of the rows to go at so about 80% of twitch is accessible.
But I will also hand weed in  amongst the peas themselves.
Sounds as if your sutuation is a lot tighter than mine though -- best of luck
R

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Salmo

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Re: What would you do?
« Reply #6 on: April 29, 2009, 23:39 »
Rather than use a sprayer get a dribble bar to fit on to your watering can. This is a T pipe with small holes which allows you apply Roundup carefully to small areas without the risk of drift. Available and cheap from most garden centres.

 

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