Overrun with couch grass

[geezawee]

I just moved into a new house and it's the first time in my life I've ever had a garden. I got out to have a proper look at it today and it's about 12 feet wide and about 40 feet long but the entire thing is literally full of dandelions and couch grass! I started digging some of it out but I forgot how strenuous that is so I didn't last long.

My mum is telling me I should just spray it all with weedkiller but I want to start growing vegetables in it at some point and I don't want to eat vegetables grown in soil I've sprayed.

i looked online and read that i should cover it with weed control fabric or carpet or something and leave it for a year but I've been waiting for a garden all my life! I don't want to have to wait a year to tinker with it.

if I cover the weeds for a year, I'll still need to dig up all the dead roots, won't I? So am I not just as well digging them up now? It'll be a similar level of physical strain?

Digging this time of year = good luck with that! The roots break and you end up with tne same problem.

Cover, and then when the weather is wetter, uncover sections, dig clear and then manage that section.

Digging this time of year = good luck with that!

I SO wish someone had told me that .Like many other new to gardening others my interest raised it'd tentative head in the summer .
Only to be hugely dismayed by how impossible the weeding/digging/planting out seemed .

I know better now through trial and error but golly ,my life would have been different and I'd have been enjoying gardening for so much sooner had I known this basic fact .

I think it should be a sticky !

Some information here:
www.gardenfocused.co.uk/techniques/couch-grass.php

I know it’s disappointing because you want to get on with it, but we gardeners are in it for the long haul! You have a virgin garden - you can get rid of all the pernicious weeds and improve your soil before you plant anything - it will pay dividends in future years.

If you want to grow vegetables, you will have to dig it all over anyway. Covering it and digging it over in autumn/winter is going to be your best bet.

I did my garden a section at a time as it was full of dandelions. I hadn’t realised their roots could be so long, so thick, and spread underground. I started three Autumns ago, continued in the Spring.
The second Autumn I collected lots of cardboard and newspapers and spread them over the next section and covered that with bags of manure and compost. By the following Spring it had decomposed and I was able to plant in it.
I’m glad I took this approach as I have very few weeds now.