soft fruit choked by couch, dandelions and bindweed.

[jeniParticipant]

Hi, I took over a neglected allotment last autumn, which has 3 large raised areas with a mix of soft fruit bushes and 4 smaller raised beds which I plan to use mainly for veg, but also a few flowers and herbs. All the beds were full of couch grass, lots of dandelions and some bindweed. I decided to start with the veg beds and covered them with ‘lasagna beds’, in this case a layer of thick cardboard, then a layer of spoiled fruit and veg and trimmed veg leaves, then small pet bedding (rabbits and guinea pigs etc), horse manure and coffee grounds, about 5 or 6 inches deep.. I also pulled out as much of the dead couch around the fruit bushes as I could. This spring, the perennial weeds were starting to appear through the mulch. I tried to dig out individual weeds but a lot were matted together, so I dug over the first bed, without standing on it, and removed all the weed roots I could find (often the couch came up in great mats, about a foot wide and 2 or 3 feet long). The soil is lovely, dark, moist and fluffy, so I have partly planted it up. I plan to hoe off any weeds over the summer, harvest the veg and then repeat the deep mulch over winter, when I can hopefully continue as a ‘typical’ no-dig system.
Now I am ready to start tackling the soft fruit areas. The couch grass is high – almost as tall as the bushes, but they seem to be doing not too badly considering. I was wondering whether to roughly cut back the weeds around the bushes, then cover with cardboard and a layer of rough compost and manure (i.e.not fully matured) then leave this until late winter, while the bushes are still dormant, dig over and continue as for the vegetable beds.
I would be grateful for any thoughts on this – has anyone tried anything similar? Would standard no-dig work if I just kept adding to the layers? Does anyone have any alternative suggestions that might work better? One final point, I am on a very tight budget, but am able to source quantities of the above mentioned materials for free.
Thanks for your patience in reading all this – I look forward to any advice.

[bluebellParticipant]

Hi Jeni Most soft fruit is easy to take cuttings from, so if you don’t mind moving it may make your life easier to take cuttings this winter ,then remove old fruit and mulch as you usually would?

[manbikevegParticipant]

I have had both globe artichokes and also blackcurrants totally lost in weeds and couch. Here is what I have done, just dabbling, so don’t take as expert advice. I found an old sickle and bought a file and carborundum stone to sharpen it. Once the couch has grown high, but preferably before it starts to seed, cut and lay it down around the base of your perennial as a straw-like mulch. I also put carboard held down by bricks around the artichokes. Lastly, the row of nine blackcurrants I have fed with composted branch wood chip and seaweed meal, and then covered with 1 metre-wide mypex on either side, with the outer edges pushed in deep with a spade. I am also propogating blackcurrants from cuttings through a 1m x 2m mypex sheet. I am trying not to cut the mypex to size, just use it in the lengths that I already have. I have an idea that the mypex around the blackcurrants may end up being ‘on loan’ and replaced with whatever mulch or surface compost material I can lay my hands on.

[Marcus OfferParticipant]

Jeni: It maybe no use to you to know, but I have a similar situation in my daughter-in-law’s veg garden (neglected for years) though in this case there is little couch grass, but aggressive ground elder, brambles and stinging nettles substitute adequately for it! There’s even a bit of Japanese knotweed to add to the fun! (That seems to be too intimidated by the ground elder and brambles to do its usual stunts!) The blackcurrant bushes have fruited pretty well (without any attention from me or others apart from cutting back too aggressive brambles) for several years – I have simply pruned them at the right time. We just haven’t had time, because it’s very large garden, (and I have my own to deal with as well) to get around to clearing this part of the ground. i have used a sickle on the weeds in summer largely to make it possible to get to the bushes to harvest them. I haven’t so far covered anything, nor have I composted the area, which is under mature apple and pear trees. No doubt if I followed Charles’s advice we’d get even better crops. I still haven’t quite worked out how he gets all the compost and other material to cover the areas he does. E.g.

http://www.charlesdowding.co.uk/no-dig-growing/no-dig-growing-preparation/

I suppose if you have enough cardboard you could cut it to fit tightly to the stems of the blackcurrants? If every plant else is in the dark and the blackcurrants have all the light, that should give them quite an advantage? Nice idea of Manbikeveg’s to use some of the couch grass against itself as a compost! The same could be done with my stinging nettles (which are particularly useful for their nutrients) but I’ve learnt from experience not to try composting them when seeding – that year I just got stinging nettles coming up all over the place – not nice to weed among!

Good Luck

Marcus

[RhysParticipant]

Marcus I think Charles has some friendly farmers who sell him a lorry load of manure for a decent price. You can certainly source 5 cubic metres online commercially for £300 if you can’t find a better local source.

I am certainly thinking of 2 cubic metres of cow manure with 2 cubic metres of suitable wood chips as an overlay. Again that is around £300 online. That would hopefully serve my garden for 5 years…..

[Marcus OfferParticipant]

Thanks, Rhys. I was merely being supportive to Jeni re the problem with wee- choked blackcurrants. The bushes in question on my daughtier-in-law’s veg garden are part of a 100 ft x 30 ft plot, not just the average allotment. I also have my own veg garden to manage: a further 60ft by 25ft. These two patches keep me fully occupied and I am naturally struggling to find the compost etc to cover them in approved no-dig style without incurring either dubious quality materials or wild expense.Given that about half of my daughter-in-law’s garden has been left to perennial weeds for about the last 8 years, with only fitful attempts to control them, we now have a rampant crop of (in order of frequency) ground elder, horsetail, stinging nettles, bindweed, creeping buttercup,japanese knotweed, docks and dandelions.. Having tackled the ground elder and horsetail on half the patch and just about won the battle I am each year attempting to (a) hold the ground gained last year (b) push out the “civilised” area into the ground still choked by perennial weeds which is also occupied by four large old fruit trees (apple, pear and damson).

I have to remain optimistic but ground elder of this order is something special: the roots in places look like a telephone exchange and they drive through the heaviest duty weed membrane (sunk to 18″ in the soil) with comparative ease. Only concrete slabs seem to stop them. As there is just me to do all this work, I get a bit tired at times. But the soil, once freed of weeds is very good (although wireworm and slugs are naturally a continuing problem and there are too many places, including a large privet hedge down one side, where weeds can regroup in order to launch another attack.

If no-dig works here, it will work anywhere! Otherwise I shall shift to permaculture! Lotta Continua!

[Author]

Posts