Grow Your Own Magazine

Hi All,

We have a plot in Bristol which is at the edge of the 'lotty and we're trying to fight invasive biomass with perspiration alone.

It's an abandoned plot - long taken over with bind weed and couch grass. We've made some serious inroads this weekend with a bushcutter to get it looking almost "under control" (at least until Spring!) but are paranoid we'll suffer the same fate as this year.

We're looking to "mulch" our beds with the black plastic sheeting and plant through for a year or two just to get on top of these persistent buggerz but we're struggling to find info on the ideal product or the best retailer (online?) for this stuff.

For info we'll need around 100m of 2-3m widths!

If anyone can kindly recommend a supplier then I'd be in your debt.

Best regards,

Jon

Hi Jon and welcome to the Vine. We are all very friendly here and you get lots of advice, suggestions and humour.

Where have you looked so far?

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Bright Blessings
Earthbabe
If at first you don't succeed, open a bottle of wine.

Hi Jon T Welcome to the vine.

The best place I know of for that sort of thing is NA Kays. They are located in Cumbria but do mail order & they are very quick & efficient. I think they do it in all sorts of sizes fro 1m wide up to 4m - mind you a 100m roll will cost you about £200

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ntg

Never be afraid to try something new.
Remember that a lone amateur built the Ark.
A large group of professionals built the Titanic

http://grief-encounters.blogspot.com/

Hello and welcome JonT. Couchgrass and bindweed are real pernicious weeds. I don't want to be too pessimistic but it will take years to get rid of them using a mulching method alone. I know you may not want to use weedkiller, but could it be an option to do an inital spray, or two, then mulch the ground. It might give you better success in a much shorter time.

Hi JonT and welcome to the vine! You'll find a good bunch of grapes on here, friendly and helpfull too, I hope you enjoy it as much as we do!

We've been looking for weed suppression fabric ourselves Jon, best prices in the shops are Homebase 1.5m cut off the roll at 90p a meter, or B&Q 1m by 20m for £9.99 (on offer), but it can be had cheaper on ebay, 2m by 50m for about £50 inc p&p, tho what quality I have no idea!

Its a good idea to keep an eye on freecycle too, we got a roll of about 15m by 1m for nowt off there! Anyhows, good luck with getting rid of the weeds, we had couch grass, mares tail, russian vine, dandelion and nettle to deal with on our plot, been doubly digging most of the roots out, but I know we havent got them all and will be battling them for some time to come, but hey, if it were too easy it wouldnt be soo much fun!

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Blessings
Suzanne (aka Mrs Dobby)

'Garden naked - get some colour in your cheeks'!

The Dobby's Pumpkin Patch - a blogspot work in progress!
Last updated 5th November2008 - new piccies!

Try Ebay - I bought 1m x 100m for £40 recently. Other size were available quite regularly,

Rob

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http://a-plot-too-far.blogspot.com

Thanks guys, much appreciated.

So the Ebay stuff is OK then, quality-wise?

Jon

Hi, I've heard that old carpet is good for this as its heavy and hard wearing, think it needs to be the stuff with woven backing and not foam. I've not tried it myself, but you should be able to pick some up for free.

You could try www.thegardensuperstore.co.uk - they're selling 500g gauge black polythene for 99p per metre, 2 metres wide. I've just bought some, but I'm also making up new flower beds in my lawn using flattened out cardboard, cut in the shape of the beds and topped with garden compost (bought from my local council at £2 per bag - bring your own bags). I'll top that off with some sort of bark mulch. Takes a while to decompose with the aid of worms but it's only been down about 6 weeks and the grass underneath is already dead - might help with your weeds.

Amy

Hi there.

Bought 100m x 1m wide WOVEN WEED CONTROL for about £40 a little while ago on ebay.
http://stores.ebay.co.uk/WEED-FREE-ZONE
Is really good stuff, and delivered virtually next day for free.

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Mclaren Pit Crew (MCP) .

Some Allotments won't allow Carpets CC. They are mainly the ones run by councils & they object on two grounds

1. They don't look nice
2. Health & safety grounds as there are some concerns that some of the carpets have been treated with Moth repllants or carpet cleaners leeching into the soil

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ntg

Never be afraid to try something new.
Remember that a lone amateur built the Ark.
A large group of professionals built the Titanic

http://grief-encounters.blogspot.com/

Yep that's where I got mine from too. Seems fine to me,

Rob

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http://a-plot-too-far.blogspot.com

You could try Tildenet, who manufacture the stuff. Have a google for their website and look under the horticultural products. They sell in 100m rolls of varying widths.

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Rat

British by birth
Scottish by the Grace of God

Blog updated Wednesday November 13th