Friday, May 16, 2008

The Jungle Attack Plan

Alice wrote:
Rotovators are a NIGHTMARE! They chop all the soil up so it LOOKS fluffy, which doesn't actually serve any purpose. Then all the weed seeds that have been brought up by the digging start to sprout, and all your couch grass, bindweed, dandelions etc which have been chopped into little bits start growing a whole new plant from each little tiny piece... DON'T DO IT!!!I cleared most of my jungle-like plot by covering large parts at a time for one whole season. A layer of cardboard excludes light really well, then a layer of plastic e.g. bin liners to speed things up by excluding water, then something heavy on top to weigh it all down e.g. old carpet.Take it all off in late Autumn and dig something organic into the soil like manure, and off you go!


Actually I'm going to combine parts of this plan. The whole plan for the scary weedy jungle is as follows:

1. Strim all weeds to ground level
2. Rotavate
3. Plant 17 pumpkin, courgette and squash seedlings which we have been bringing on at home
4. Plant tall things such as sweetcorn and sunflowers amongst the pumpkins and squash

The thick broad leaves of the pumpkins will (with any luck) smother the ground and suppress any weeds that try to come up after rotavating. Potatoes might also work but it's a big area and we'd end up with a heck of a lot of spuds. I think I can barter pumpkins more easily than spuds. I'll take the courgettes we want to eat and the ones we don't want can rot on the vine for all I care.

The size of the area is what deters us from the cardboard and old carpet method. We really couldn't get enough cardboard and carpet to do it. In any case, I've found the same thing with that as you found with rotavating - the really bad weeds such as ground elder and couch grass just lie dormant under the carpet and they pop up again when you take it off, even after a whole year. There's no way to get out of forking all the roots up, but if we chop them into tiny pieces with a rotavator we'll put them back long enough to get our pumpkins established, backed up by daily hoeing.

After the first frost when the squash plants all deflate like popped balloons we will fork the area over and remove any remaining weed roots. Then if we can get it we'll cover the whole area with as much manure as we can - at least a few inches. Or we might go the green manure route, although Ed's not a fan of that.

That's our jungle attack plan. Phase one starts tomorrow.

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'll take the courgettes we want to eat and the ones we don't want can rot on the vine for all I care.

Nononononono.. courgette wine.. you know it makes sense..

Anonymous said...

Hi i am new to your blog but saw you were looking into peer to peer rental

Have you heard of LETS its a king of labour barter group wher you do things for people and in return they do something for you some groups even have markets to exchange produce

havent read all the blog so sorry if you already knew this

I have enjoyed what i have read though

Sharron

Anonymous said...

Great plan and good choice of weed smotherers. I grew some butternut squashes once. They weren't bought seeds they were just out of squashes, they produced barely any fruit but grew so aggressively they smothered brambles!

Yellow said...

I lurve butternut squash, and so do hubby and the kids. Please grow them, or Nutter Butty Squishes as the kids called them when they were younger.

Courgette wine.... mmmm? How about a monster-ripe-courgette fight at the end of the growing season, with prizes for who left standing at the end.

Z said...

I used the cardboard/black polythene method to clear the ground inside a large (40' x 14') greenhouse I'd just put up. I left it for two years and there wasn't much left of the ground elder and nettles by then. Because it was inside, I put pots on top and grew tomatoes etc in the meantime.

The area of ground next to it, about a similar size, is where I grow squashes and pumpkins. I put down that permeable black membrane, cut crosses into it and plant into the ground through them. The membrane has lasted several years and it saves a load of weeding.

equa yona(Big Bear) said...

If you put down a 4-5 shet thickness of newspaper, pile mulch on to weigh it down, you can plant right through the newspaper. It WILL kill off the weeds, you can dig a small hole if you wnat to add compost for your plantings and you can sheet compost right over the newspaper.

Anonymous said...

Even with your new strategy, there is still the issue/theory (I am no expert) that all the little bits of weed will start growing - so you may want to miss out the rotavating. If the ground is soft enough (from the recent rains) do you need it?

equa yona(Big Bear) said...

http://iwhome.com/nonprofits/TOG/TOGsm.html

This is a link to a good set of instructions for sheet composting-while it calls for 10-12 inches of compostables, the sheets of newspaper will work to kill the weeds.

Anonymous said...

very nice blog... keep up the good work!!! God Bless!!!

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Sandra said...

Zucchini pickle Mel! Great for adding pizzazz to winter cheese sandwiches.

JD said...

Plant some spuds. The earthing up, weeding and digging will help the soil as well as putting on some manure/fertilizer or liquid feed.
They will keep and everybody will take homegrown potatoes as they taste much better than the supermarket ones.