Rotavator on nightmare plot.

Hi all! This is my second allotment, I have just transferred plots and my new one is covered in grass which seems to be growing a metre by the second... I think I am going to rotavate but need to Know if this is safe over grass? If not, any tips on how else to cope?

Cheers

 

Hi and welcome to GC.

You have a few choices as I see it.

1. Cut the grass down and cover it until next spring.

2. Use glyphosate (weed killer).

3. Dig it all over by hand than use or cover till next spring.

4 Go straight in and rotovate after cutting the grass down.

Number 4 would be my favourite way, knowing what I know now, wheras a couple of years ago I would have dug it over by hand to dig roots out, possibly after using weedkiller.

Providing you don't have too much pernicious weed its ok to go in and rotovate straight away, yes you WILL cut up weed roots and therefore make more weeds, but if your ready next spring with the hoe you can keep on top of that.

However if you have Mares tail, couch grass or bindweed then rotovating is probably not a good idea and I would use weedkiller then dig by hand.

Get someone from your site who knows his/her stuff to identify what weeds you have before you start anything, then you can plan from there.

Hope this helps a little.

Steve...

 

What's the best (or worst) from the point of view of marestail? It's taking over!

Cheers, Tony.

 

Keep rotovating in summer heat and all the bits of perrenial weed roots will shrivel up and die, I've found the biggest problem with overgrown plots to be the seed bank of annual/perrenial weeds just lying there waiting for you to clesr some spacd for them to grow.

 

"Never let it see a Sunday"

Once a week remove all you can see, get thumb and forefinger down the marestail as far into the soil as you can and pull gently, you will get it out with a fair amount of root. By doing it weekly you weaken it so the problem becomes less.

Steve...

 

I spent today trying to clear some, it is very low lying in a big open spot where nothing else is competing so I had to clear it from my potatoe rows and now working on the big patch, gave it a good spray too. cant hurt