Page 12 - Allotment Gardener Issue 2 2024

SPRING
& SUMMER
NO DIG
Summer awaits! But before that, make sure you are starting in a good place, so that you can enjoy the coming time of really rapid growth, without feeling overwhelmed. Having experienced that myself, I know how important it is to be organised at this stage: let’s start with weeds.
loosen the young root and you can then gently pull it out. Do this weekly, if possible, before any new leaves can photosynthesise much, and this keeps weakening the parent roots.
Eventually they die, after perhaps one year for couch grass, two years for field bindweed, and many years for marestail. Not easy, but worth it in the long run. Invest time now to save a lot later. And perhaps lay a 60cm line of cardboard around your plot edges where these weeds are spreading in.
Path care and bed sides
Weed your paths as well as beds! If you don’t, weeds go to seed in your pathways, or couch grass spreads from them into your beds. If path weeds are too many to hand weed, lay cardboard on them and a little chip or rough compost on the card to hold it in place.
Perennial weeds are easier to control when you do not have wooden sides, which get in the way of weed removal and also can harbour many perennial weed roots on the inside of wooden boards. No dig plotholders are saving time and money by not making or maintaining wooden sides, and this enables purchase of more compost, should you need it. See also point 5 below.
How to reduce slug numbers, without using pellets
Reduce slug damage by minimising their habitats. We can never get rid of slugs
Weeds
If you’re racing to keep up with weeding now, it will, I’m afraid, become more difficult in summer. Especially because, on many sites, there are neglected plots or areas where weeds can make seeds which then blow around in the wind. Last summer in my garden, I was amazed how many sow thistles germinated from July and into early autumn. They had been going to seed out of
sight in the nearby woodland, plus we’d had winds of an unusual direction which blew those seeds into my garden.
One good thing is how, with no dig and decent mulching, it’s possible to have fewer weeds and to remove them more easily. When new seedlings of annual weeds keep appearing, use a trowel or hoe to scuff the surface very shallowly, no more than 1cm deep. Do that in the morning and weed seedlings are dead by evening. The exception is annual grasses whose roots are so tenacious and numerous, and larger weeds too; it’s best to pull them before hoeing, using a trowel if necessary. Perennial weeds such as couch grass, bindweed, and marestail need extra persistence.
With no dig, my strategy is weekly removal of all new shoots
Use a trowel, inserted almost vertically close to a new perennial weed shoot. Use a lever motion to
Homeacres, one of my trial areas mid-May 2023and tomatoes outside, even when they are ready to transplant.
12 | Issue 2 2024 | Allotment Gardener