The Vegetable Patch Mark 2

[MereDintofPandiculation]

A continuation of the thread for those of us growing edibles, to share triumphs and failures, swap expertise and solve problems

I grow my tomatoes on benches not on the ground. My greenhouse has a series of suspended canes running along under the roof so I can drape bubble wrap over in the winter. They are excellent for supporting tomatoes

This is genius- thanks for the idea!

How I wish grow bags were a thing in Australia. I've seen them very occasionally at Bunnings over the years but when I've asked lately I've had to explain very very slowly what they are. Then the assistant looks at me as if I'm a lazy glipe for not mixing my own or putting it in a container like a normal person.

@echt do they sell normal bags of compost in Australia? That's bizarre about the grow bags!

Put mine in yesterday. Taking advantage of a break in the rain. Also planted up some little gems and purple sprouting broccoli.

My rhubarb patch is like a jungle. So much of it this year. All good, healthy thick stuff too.

Just finished reclaiming a 3 m2 patch of lawn at the allotment. My back is killing me. Tomorrow it will be strictly easy jobs: mowing what’s left, making a frame and putting some sweet pea plants in.

Snap - I was weeding the strawberry bed and noticed the rhubarb at the back of the bed has gone mad in the last 10 days! Crumble for dessert, I think.

I’m still elbows deep in all the February and March jobs we have usually done by now. I’ve only just started the seeds and DH is repairing the raised beds that rotted over winter.

The garden waste collections haven’t restarted yet and the bin is already hopelessly over-full with prunings.

I’m going to have to import the neighbours’ guinea pigs to eat the dandelions I’ve dug up.

Didn't make it to the allotment today and tomorrow looks like it's going to be a washout. I've started a load of things off indoors today, now got lots of mini self watering 'greenhouses' on the window sills

Yes, of many varieties - veggie bed, camellia, native, standard, etc. But not grow bags. They are weird.

Help fellow vegetable/fruit growers.

I spent ages digging out couch grass around my fruit bushes a few weeks ago, I wanted to get things sorted before I had surgery, it looked very tidy. Just been to my plot for the first time after my op and the couch grass is popping back up. Would I be best outing some kind of membrane or cardboard down and then mulch?

I took the plot on last year and it was almost all couch grass, I did no dig and most of the plot is looking great but the end where the fruit bushes are is just awful and I just can’t stop the couch grass coming back.

I am afraid the only solution is to keep pulling it out. Couch grass roots break as you weed and so it is very hard to eradicate. I've had it grow through whole potatoes before. It laughs at card board.

To weaken it you can put thick black weed fabric down, and then pull it back every few months and remove any remaining couch grass plants. Or whenever you see it growing up at the edges.

Thank you. It’s a real pain. I spent ages pulling out roots but the ground was so wet it was tricky to remove them all and now I’m out of action for 6 weeks so it’s going to grow like crazy 😭

It's the bane of my gardening life @Lovemusic33 so I feel your pain. Mine is swamped with it again at the moment.

I have couch grass and bindwind all over my allotment, it's a constant battle. I'd love to go no dig, but instead I have to opt for minimal dig at least until the persistent weeds are under control. I'm experimenting this year with letting the persistent weeds (including dandelions) rot down for at least a year in old compost sacks, instead of putting them into my brown recycling bin. I'm hopeful but not convinced that it will kill them off completely.

I had an allotment for 10 years with couch grass, I tried everything. Including covering the whole thing with cardboard for a number of years, and covering the whole thing with cardboard covered with a foot of woodchip, for a number of years. The couch grass was the one thing that did grow through the woodchip and cardboard. Even the heat of the woodchip breaking down didn't stop it.

The only thing that worked was to rake the whole thing flat, cover with weed fabric and grow in pallet collar raised beds. I bought in top soil from a local gravel company and had the best growing years ever afterwards.

Mares tail seems to be the problem weed at our allotment. The dandelions are ginormous but fairly easy to pull and deal with, as is the bindweed. The mares tail is much harder work.

I get a LOT of bindweed too, I just pull it out wherever I see it and remove any roots I find when removing couch grass. At the end of last year I realised that the grass paths around my plot had encroached quite significantly on three sides and used an edging tool to cut then back but I then left piles of grassy lumps to deal with and am still working through all those, plus the couch grass that pops up all over the place when my back is turned. With the lumps I turn them over so the soil is dried out then I can knock as much as possible off before chucking the grass away, there is a very overgrown steep bank at the back of the site which we can throw them into to rot down, it helps stabilise the bank too.

Disappointingly, I put in a rasied bed last year and filled with fresh top soil - about a foot deep. I then covered it up with a thick weed membrane for the winter.

I've just taken the membrane off and the whole bed is thick with couch grass - having come up from under all that soil.

Sob!

Part of our border is plagued with bindweed. I foolishly thought that dumping piles upon piles of leaves on top of it in the autumn/winter would mulch it away. Oh no, it gave it even more nutrients and moisture. dang!

For the past couple of years, Ive spent hours pulling up as much of the growth and roots as possible. This was based on watching a YouTube video by Charles Dowding who is an expert in weed control and no-dig gardening. He says that you just have to keep at it year in year out and it does weaken it eventually. I'm always up for a gardening challenge, so we'll see if it works.

@NewYearNewSeeds I guess the upside is, can you imagine what it would have been like if you hadn't put down the membrane!

I think that does work, we have a bed at home that used to be completely infested with bindweed, there was a huge woody shrub that made it hard to dig out the roots and reach round the back. When we had the fence replaced we took out the shrub, cleared every scrap of bindweed we could find and although it does still try, I dig out the shoots as soon as I see them now and it is under control (no more big shrubs either).

The problem area for me at the allotment is my strawberry bed, I net it while it is fruiting and the bindweed takes over, it's really hard to pull it out without accidentally uprooting the smaller strawberry plants.

I have bindweed on my other plot, I have dug out loads of roots but i know it will still return 😬, I’m not sure which I hate the most, I think probably the couch grass. I might put a raised bed on the worst part, I wanted to plant some strawberries in a raised bed anyway. All this rain isn’t helping, it’s now warming up and the couch grass is growing like crazy.

I went up to my plot today, I’m not supposed to be doing anything at the moment due to having surgery but I might have pulled a few weeds out with the hoe as am scared of how bad it will be if I don’t touch it for another 4 weeks.

Damn bindweed is such a .... bind

im starting to get worried, it's the start of April and it won't stop raining... I bet it's already growing inch by inch along the wall 😱

I have done my strawberry bed under sheeting with holes for the plants to try and keep it under control. Not sure it will work though.

I was doing some autumn tidying up and wondered what had become of the two seed potatoes I grew in a spud bag from Aldi. I'd given up on them as they never flowered. 2.5 kilos. Probably ludicrously expensive per kilo.