Lazy? Weed Control On New Allotment - Using Carpet & Cardbard

Hi All,

Not sure if this has been asked a thousand times already,  but I have acquired an allotment at long last which had been left overgrown for the last two years.

The local council kindly strimmed back the site to leave the underlying couch grass, nettles and bind weed.

I've written the growing seaon off this year in an effort to prepare & layout the plot properly for next year and hopefully many years after that.

So far I've treated the site with Roundup Ultra 3000 - 1 application 4 weeks ago and a 2nd recent aplpication approx 1 week ago.

Whilst it appears to have killed off most of the couch grass, the bindweed and nettles are still showing signs of life in many areas.

I'm quite fortunate in being able to source a steady stream of Hessian Backed Carpet and Cardboard and also some well rotted horse manure.

My plan is to let the ground lie fallow with a layer of manure cover by cardboard and carpet.

My main question / quandary is whether I should wait for the weed killer to take more effect before adding the manure etc.- I dont want to feed the weeds!!

Also should the carpet be placed hessian side up oir down (Or doesn't it really make any difference)

Cheers...

Hi Purdy Dog and welcome to the site. First of all - most allotments associations do not allow the use of carpets as weed suppressants because grass and weeds can grow through them and cause major problems and also because they can contain dangerous chemicals. You would be much better to use cardboard if you want to go down that route. The second issue is with manure - some manure has been shown to be contaminated with weedkiller - I have attached a link below but if you search on this site you will get more information on the issue.

ww.allotment-garden.org/garden-diary/261/contaminated-manure-aminopyralid-update/

I would suggest that you follow Nobbies advice and get really ready for next year - but you could dig over some of your plot and plant some winter veggies. There are lots of ideas of which you could plant in the attached link.

http://www.allotment-garden.org/garden_month.php

Hope all goes well for you.

Hi all,

Thanks for the advice, I was aware for the carpet issue, our allotment does allow the use of carpet and my plan was to use it primarily as a means of weighing down the cardboard.

The manure issue is rather scary,

I may do a test planting whilst I'm waiting for the weed killer to finally take effect.

I'll ask the land owner - a small stables near us (who I wouldn't suspect of spraying her land as there's only a few acres), where she gets her hay from if they spray their crops(Doesn't the weed killer affect cattle / horses in anyway??) I imagine though that the hay suppliers will be backward at ciming forwards with that kind of info