Nettles

[NickParticipant]

I have just agreed to take on a badly neglected 1/4 plot next to my allotment, mainly because I am fed up with it being in such a state and an eyesore. Half is couch grass, the other half is full of strongly growing nettles (which originate in the field it backs onto and over which I have no control). I have cut them down to a few inches in order to find and clear the non organic rubbish that they covered, but am wondering how best to deal with them. Would several months of black polythene covering be the most effective? Many thanks

[LeifParticipant]

I had a nettle patch. They were fairly easy to dig out as the roots are shallow, thick and yellow so easily identified.

[NickParticipant]

Thanks Leif, looks like I have a winter digging project on my hands 😊

[iainParticipant]

you could keep the nettles and make some nettle fertiliser every year. Just rot some in water then use it diluted. It is a marvellous tonic and will keep most of the whitefly and caterpillars off brassica if used as a dilute spray. If you use it neat it is supposed to work as a weedkiller by makingthe weeds outgrow themselves. It did make some creeping buttercup look like it had been sprayed with a hormone weedkiller but I only had enough for one spraying and the buttercup recovered. Worth a try maybe. You could also go for the nettle soup idea and if you are really adventurous, nettle makes a fiber similar to hemp (same family)

[ivyroseParticipant]

You can get rid of the nettles by digging them up carefully. You could either compost these nettles or get rid of them using a weedkiller containing a glyphosphate. This may take about 3 -4 weeks for the nettles to die and may require another second treatment.Since the glyphosphate only acts on the chlorophyll this will not affect the soil.

[charlesModerator]

Ivyrose I don’t follow your argument, to “either compost these nettles or get rid of them using a weedkiller”, because once dug up you can as you say, compost them!
Nettles are way easier to remove than say couch grass, as Leif writes above.
You can also mulch them if the compost is deep enough (about 6in, with thick cardboard first) or with polythene for average 6 months.
I see no need to use glyphosphate on any weeds and disagree that it does not affect soil. That is Monsanto propaganda. More and more research is showing the damage to wildlife from glyphosphate, not to mention to humans – did you know that a fair amount of wheat and potato crops are sprayed with glyphosphate just before harvest? Farmers do this because it kills the leaves and makes combining/potato harvesting easier…
We need to keep our gardens free of these poisons.

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