couch grass

[Traceyh]

Hi all you gardners,

we have been trying to cultivate a veg plot, it was an existing plot but was left for 2 seasons, before we first dug it over, we tried to rotivate it but still had to pull up lots of couch grass by hand Then we planted potatoes as we have heard they are the best veg to help improve the soil, however asthe couch grass grew faster than the spuds,it seemed useless. We are begining again this season, firstly by digging the soil by hand and ofcourse weeding the couch grass, I do know you have to get every little bit out but there just seems to be more all the time.

So can anyone tell us if we can put anything on the soil to kill the couch grass once and for all and then still us the site for vegs

Thanks in advance  Traceyh

[Goo_Rat]

Hi

2 things you could try:

1. Let it grow till late spring, then smack it with a glyphsate based weedkiller, but that will mean that you not be able to plant on the plot until after it has been treated and died, you may need a repeat treatment too.

2. Try companion planting, Tagetes Minuta (Marigolds) are supposed to have a herbicidal root that kills thing like couch grass, ground alder etc. They also deter many nasty bugs too

 

[Pucette<P><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3>Pucette<FONT><P><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3><P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt">"Qui ne connaît pas la campagne lhiver, ne connaît pas la campagne et ne connaît pas]

Hopefully others will learn from your mistakes and dig out the couch grass before they rotovate.

I would dig it out by hand; can't see the point in growing vegetables on ground contaminated with chemicals, one might as well buy them.

[hoverfrog]

dig by hand, taking out every bit of root you can. Cover with at least 6" of horse muck (our 'supplier' used wood shavings in the stables so a substantial proportion was partially rotted shavings) and leave for a year (or at least 6 months - do in autumn ready for a late spring)

Dig by hand again - the couch will be fat but straggly and easy to pull up. The wood shavings stop annuals and a lot of the more surface rooted couch, so the net effect overall is a patch that is easy to cultivate, has very few weeds, and those that did grow are easy to remove.

Worked for me!

[Traceyh]

Thanks for the replies, I agree Pucette, we don't really want to use chemicals, for all the work involved we want to produce something better than supermarket food. Looks like its more digging by hand and lots of manure, at least the ground is soft due to all this rain

Traceyh

[Pucette<P><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3>Pucette<FONT><P><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3><P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt">"Qui ne connaît pas la campagne lhiver, ne connaît pas la campagne et ne connaît pas]

My experience with mixing manure and couch grass was a disaster. It was straw-based and I used it to cover part of a couch-grass infested allotment in London, on poor clay soil. The soil set like concrete with the roots in it, it was much more difficult to clear than the half that didn't have that treatment and remained more difficult to work subsequently.

I wonder whether it was the straw rather than wood shavings that made the difference. The wood shavings rob the soil of nitrogen while they are rotting, although it is returned when they have rotted; perhaps they starved the couch whereas my strawy manure fed it. Certainly here I've had no trouble removing couch after a season under manure or grass clippings or leaves... the soil here is clay but not as poor as the above.

Another option is to cover with black plastic, I find that this works very well, but it is too expensive for a large area. It also has the advantage that the soil underneath is damp when the rest is parched and workable when the rest is sodden so you can work on that patch when you can't work on the rest. Cardboard is another option. I've read that it is a good idea to lay newspaper under manure but I haven't tried it and don't have the paper to waste here.