Weed control with no dig

[Mandala Hsiao]

Hi Charles and all,

I am from Ghent, Belgium, and new for gardening. We just got our allotment from the beginning of this year, and we follow your books by using no dig although we have to dig out a lot of weeds first. We’ve spent 280 euro for 13 big bags (9 tons) of green waste compost to mulch our plot to the size about 350 m2 – 400 m2. We still have some leftover of compost to mulch. Now the problem is that, it’s getting warm so the weeds are growing really very fast, we want to put a heavier layer of compost or something which we can get easily.

Now we are considering to add a thin layer of horse manure, and on top of that we will add another thin layer of compost. We are not certain if we can do like this as the horse manure is not well rotted yet, probably the oldest is about 2-3 months old. For the main purpose of mulching the weed, can we plant brussels sprout/ cabbages immediately on top ?

Mandala

[charles]

Nice to hear, a big project and well done, third photo looks fine.
Do you mean the weeds are growing fast on the unmulched area? Its getting late to mulch and crop it – you could try spreading some of the less rotted horse manure, compost on top, then polythene on top to stop weeds pushing though, make a few holes in the polythene to plant Brussels and large cabbage – but its a gamble e.g. slugs may eat them.
Still worth covering with polythene to have it weed-free, mostly, by early spring. Sometimes its best to play the long game.

[Mandala Hsiao]

Hi Charles,

Thanks for your prompt reply. I am sorry that I didn’t make it clear.

Our plot is at the right side. The weedy part belongs to the original gardener who’s not motivated
as the total area (including the paths and the storage area) is more than 900 m2, so he shared half of it with us.

We’ve cleaned it up at the beginning of May, but we had to do more hand weeding than the area where we cleaned up earlier of this year. It’s still under control, yet it’s like what you said it’s not weed free and yes we want to play the long game. We were thinking what we have at hand, and that’s 2 cubes of compost plus free horse manure.
In this case, is laying polythene on top still necessary?

Here we have a second question about weeding. At the front part of our plot we did lay polythene on top of the compost since the previous gardener grew Jerusalem artichokes and it kept on growing back. (The right side belong to the previous gardener) We are not sure if this will work for stopping Jerusalem artichokes growing. As you can see from the pic, the weeds are also growing very fast outside the fence. Can I also grow e.g. spring cabbages here by making holes as you suggested?

BTW, we already have your “Winter Vegetable” and “VEG Journal” books, which book do you recommend us to read for the next?

Thanks a lot

Mandala

[charles]

Its better than I first thought, well done.
You can be rid of Jerusalem artichokes by repeated pulling, they run out of gas eventually.
Polythene on top is an option if you think the perennial weeds are pushing through faster and in greater numbers than you can remove. One problem with it is an increase of slugs underneath and they may affect say cabbage, but in the long term polythene may be worthwhile.
I would check out my latest book How to Create a New Veg Garden – lots on mulching, and growing through mulches while weeds die, also hotbeds & planning tables for sowing.
Best of luck.

[Mandala Hsiao]

Thank you for taking your time answering my questions.
Then I think I should be more brave to remove that polythene and plant something there.
We are indeed interested in using hotbeds and are wondering when you’ll write about it, here it is. I’ll add this book to our reading list.

[Author]

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