Weeding

Is that a technique?...or just the lack of it?

There is an old polish fella at the lottie who reckons that weeds hide his brassicas from pests but frankly he is still faced with the same patch of couch and rubbish after fifty years....It is a nightmare in my opinion

With diligence, after a year or two the weeding thing becomes so much easier. If you let them seed and leave perennial roots it gets worse....very disheartening.

As far as nutrients and moisture competition is concerned ...some (eg aliums) really resent it while others (like spuds and pumpkins) tend to smother the weeds.

A few years back a mate of mine took over a very weedy plot, someone had planted up then through work/family commitments had had to abandon the plot, it was covered in Fat Hen that was waist high, has my mate worked away clearing the site he came across some fantastically healthy clean crops free from disease and pest damage hidden under the jungle.

My blackcurrants have done very well in long grass and nettles this year

I think it's because birds etc couldn't see the currants, we've ended up with a bumper crop..

However, as an unorganised gardener, I am fighting the weeds all the time. If I left them, any crops I planted would be subsumed by nettles, bindweed and mares tail within weeks of planting.

The bindweed is growing up my potatoes, and isn't deterrred by the thick foliage or lack of light!

My neighbouring lottie holder is practicing this very technique. It is a wonderful and most efficient method of seeding my (weed free) plot with weed seeds.

Yes my lotty neghbour has the same technique too! He seems to spent loads of money on plant plugs, pops them in and then leaves them to die through lack of water, weeding etc.
I have weeds on my plot dont get me wrong, but I realise how far I have come his year when I look yonder through his couch grass!!

My neighbour practices this,im struggling with bindweed and couch coming from his side,ive noticed the bindweed now has little pods of seed ready to explode

My neighbours plot( and this was a few weeks ago)

I'm sorry thats just taking the pi55,the council should serve him/her with an enforcement notice to clear it or lose it

He got his in the same state the same day as mine....and here is mine(taken the same day)

You really shouldn't let the weeds get to seeding stage: it may not be politic, but I'd go on his plot and shear off all the seedheads.

Easier said than done TwoSheds. On my site, another allotment holder on the other side of the weedy one (we sandwich the weedy plot) did clear and weed the plot earlier in the year. She just doesn't have the time to manage a full plot and its a lovely poppy field now, with intercropped potatoes, onions , leeks, broad beans, raspberry canes etc etc.

I've tried this, either through lazyness (you have read my sig right?), or through experimentation.

And I would advise anyone to experiment, it shows up very well which cultivation techniques work well and which don't work at all.

Firstly, this year I tried growing sprouts in a lawn, to be fair it had 10" square collars around them to protect from root fly, but they are struggling, no matter how much feed I throw at them. So as another part of the experiment, I cleared one plants grass back another foot all around it, within a few days it has perked up and while it was the worst looking plant, it is now by far the best. So now I have laid anything I can find, round the whole lot of plants to suppress the weeds/lawn.... it wasn't a very good lawn to start with, but to be fair (the bits around the sprouts) looks a hell of a lot better, now that the grass has had all of my water and feed

Tried it with onions and they get smothered and either die or remain tiny.
My gooseberries and currants have weeds growing round them, sometimes I stick a mulch of cardboard around them if I have enough and the chickens razer off all the weeds in the winter (and probably give a nice manure to them as well) they never seem worried if they have weeds or not.

What else.... strawberries didn't seem to notice too much, most other stuff seems to grow better and bigger if kept at least moderately clear.

Try it and see for yourself, nothing makes seeing it in front of you, to change the way you do things.

i have gave up on the fat hen its just coming thick and fast this year , It has not helped with working away and using the dreaded rotorvator

Funnily enough my neighbour has straberries growing away on that patch inbetween the weeds. Hard to belive really. Needless to say we make sure he does not get overrun with Strawberries