Roots...

Ha! That made me remember a telly program from years ago lol

Anyway, been trying to turn a bit of my garden over, with my trusty fork (non kitchen variety)... Everywhere I dig, there seems to be a carpet of roots, woody ones, big ones, wee ones everywhere :( And no matter how deep I try to dig... the roots get bigger
This is at the rear of our garden where a neighbours garden has bramble bushes, there's a hawthorn tree(!), and a good 50' Sycamore tree nearby too, our garden is just outside the canopy, so about 10mtrs away...
Should I try to 'kill' the roots? Or pull them out (may be about 150 by the time I was finished), or just turn the soil and make it ready for planting next year (veggie patch hopefully). I have some topsoil left which I have used over some of it to plant on my tomato plants, now I'm thinking I've just gave the roots new food!!!!

SF

 

I've had the same problem this year with 2 trees invading the veg patch.

I had wondered why the area was not doing as well as the rest of the plot despite being well manured.

The soil was bone dry, they'd sucked out all the water.

I'm going to put a root barrier in when I dig it over.

 

Thanks Ziggy. Might just try a gallon of 4* and a match, might be a bit quicker lol

 

Would be good if there was a mammal that just ate roots that you wanted to get rid of - that would solve all our problems (and save us some backache)

Hmmm... this comment reminds me of a certain post about dead badgers and Linux, elsewhere on this forum.......

 

Sounds like a couple of my gardens.
Sometimes they want new shrubs put in and when i dig i just come across roots and more roots.
They best method i have found with areas like this is Using a fork, spade, loppers, pruning saw,shears and a trowel....Oh, and knee pads :WINK1:
I just slowly but surely work my way through cutting anything i come across and i get there in the end.
A horrible job but like all gardening tasks it's worth it when you have it all how you like. I love my garden a lot more because of all the graft i had to go through to get it as it is.

 

Well, I guess what I'm going to be doing when I come off my night-shifts this week... :/

Thanks guys