New plot: Mare's Tail!

[sweetcorn]

On a new allotment, is there any chance whatsoever of getting rid of mare's tail? It's very vigorous - I've never seen such sturdy stems from this plant! If I just keep breaking it off (I know the roots have been found in coal mines!) will it eventually get weaker and die off?

[CaroltheCarrot]

Just keep diggin it out, and diggin it out and diggin.............., will you get rid of it? Not in this lifetime but it will eventually weaken.
Good luck, horrible stuff!

[alldigging]

kurtail is supposed to work. Expensive though.

There's a banned weedkiller only available to buy as a compost accelerant that's also supposed to work.
Think it's Ammonium sulfamate (Interestingly if you buy it they send you the dilution levels for historical use as a weedkiller)

[chris]

Digging, and shading it out, unless you want to use a weedkiller. If you do, you need to crush the leaves/stem before you spray it as due to the high silica content in it, it'll just run straight off hardly affecting it.

[sowitgrowit]

"Never let it see a Sunday" seems to be the accepted phrase. Chop it off whenever you see it.

Break up the stems and add them to your comfrey/nettle fertiliser if you have some brewing.

I also have a plot with plenty of marestail about but it isn't too destructive if you keep chopping it down. It's wonderfully resilient stuff - annoying for us, but impressive nonetheless.

[lottie dolly]

we have as well,you learn to live with it,a lot of mine go into the special brew pot,is said to give strength to plants,seems to be a good year for it,is growing quicker than the weeds lol,must be all the rain we had,ok... have gone now,

[sowitgrowit]

A gardening article in the Guardian mentioned that the marestail was a fungicide when added to the evil broth.

I took my stinkin' brew equipment (paving slab, bucket, etc) to the allotment yesterday. Heavier than I thought and further away when you're carrying things but it's now brimming over with river water, nettles and marestail so hopefully it will make a decent slop for the veggies.

[Snadger]

Think its silicon based so is good for scouring pans......................

[snohare]

If I just keep breaking it off (I know the roots have been found in coal mines!) will it eventually get weaker and die off?

Well, you know that pop song, "In the Year 2525"....? It might not be that soon.

I would bet that if you change the acidity of your soil a bit, this will make a big difference to how fast it grows. I'd hesitate to say that it will never take over your plot if you just keep cutting it back whenever it pops up - it depends on how often you are there, for one thing - but my experience of it is that although it is hard to eradicate, you can live with it with no major problems.
If you do cut it back, treat it a bit like asparagus - cut the stems as far down into the soil as you can get.

[areia]

just a thought would it be right in saying if you are over run with the mare tail your soil might be good ??? I know it seems to be more common near water,

neighbouring plots do get over run they all just double dug the soil pulling as much as they could, then just kept on top of it after, quite afew only get the odd bit here and there now but as others have said it takes forever to go,
when i first saw it I thought it was asparagus

[snohare]

I have the feeling that something I read on the Vine in an earlier thread - the one about what is your least favourite weed, I think - gave me an "Aha!" moment and I thought, "It needs a particular pH, that's why it likes moist ground".
If that is so, well most plants do well if the soil is slightly acid rather than alkaline, so yes the soil would cultivate well.

[Two_Sheds]

Pedant alert !


It's not marestail, it's horsetail. Marestail is an aquatic plant.



Anyhoo, shading it out is best, as it's not very competitive: it does best in bare open ground, so don't allow it to see the sun.

This plot I took over was covered in the stuff, but I had it under control within a year. It still pops up, of course, but I just pull it right up, and it's very much reduced

[Alison]

I've got loads of the stuff but to be honest it's not that bad. As the roots go so deep it doesn't compete with the plants I sow and you can get a strange satisfaction out of pulling out a really long root of it. I can't imagine I'll ever get rid of it but it is getting weaker by just pulling it out when I see it. Don't add chemicals, they're nasty and to be honest not really necessary. I get far more trouble from couch grass.

[Two_Sheds]

I get far more trouble from couch grass.

Yep, that really does strangle and smother other plants. This year I've started bagging up the couch & horsetail, to see if it makes good leafmould: it's potentially high in K, so a good medium for tomatoes

[singleseeder]

Yep, that really does strangle and smother other plants. This year I've started bagging up the couch & horsetail, to see if it makes good leafmould: it's potentially high in K, so a good medium for tomatoes

I would never have thought about doing that TS, as I thought horsetail was indestructable. The story is that it arrived on our lottie site in some manure and it is travelling slowly accross the plots.