Selfsufficientish.com

Hi all, does anyone have any advice about the best way to remove these? We've had our plot ploughed and rotavated and have been pulling out all the odd bits that keep growing but it's all along the borders too! I don't mind a bit of grass but these are ridiculous! Is there any other way than digging them out repeatedly? (I don't want to use weedkiller.)
Thanks,
mithril.

According to those who know - goats!

Nev

Keep mowing regularly. It takes months, even years but eventually the roots give up and die.

Alternatively cover with old carpet to exclude the light. Again it can take a long time and doesn't work 100% but does remove a lot of them.

Alternatively, just eat them. There's a thread on here somewhere about all the things you can do with nettles.

Zoe

Thomzo wrote:Alternatively, just eat them. There's a thread on here somewhere about all the things you can do with nettles.

And brambles are pretty useful, too: wine, jam, jelly, juice, pies... I just try to contain mine to odd bits around the edges of the garden. No chance of ever really getting rid of them all! They are also very useful to attract insects.

The Lottie I took on last year has brambles,a little nettle, lots of couch grass, thistles and lots of marestail.

A bit late for this case, but I was lucky and my neighbours warned me not to rotivate. As it spreads the weed. I can not believe how little thistle root left behind can become a thistle again!. That much stored energy must be edible!!!.

The brambles you have to keep pulling up the root. I'm training the ones on my fence in an attempt to divert the activity somewhere useful.

The rest of the plot I'm double digging gradually in 2 m wide sections, removing all the root I can find by hand, breaking up every last clod. Then I'm putting weed suppressant over the whole area (50p/m for a 2mx50m roll). Its better than carpet cos the carpet contains nasty chemicals, and is not recommended now, and in fact some lotties ban it.

Then I'm building raised beds over the suppressant, cutting through it only where the bed is. The theory is I'm weakening the roots first. There are still roots in the soil, but the only place these can come up are in my raised beds, which because there are planted with crops, are heavily competed, and under watch by me.

Its hard work, and doesn't look great at the moment, but its the best alternative to chemicals. Eventually I'll cover up the weed suppressant with wood chip or pave slabs as and when I can get hold of them.

Nettles are apparently very hard to get rid of. an edition of GQT the other week had a bloke on who had a nettle infested compost heap. He wanted the heap and didn't want to spray. Bob Flowerdew suggested he pull up all the nettles, then put heavy duty weed suppressant over (no light visible through it). And leave it a year. As he pointed out. If a plant can't get light for a whole growing season, it can not survive.(unless its a seed of course!)

RootOut works wonders..

Im afraid I resorted to glyphosate on the weekend

I am about to build 15 raised beds of 2.4m by 1.2 m (4ft by 8foot beds) in my half plot and then cover the path ways with weed suppressant fabric and bark chippings/ riddled stones etc

After that little construction project I shall not really have to do very much on the plot apart from sorting out where the flowers need to grow

Cardboard covered in compost for raised beds has been recommended to suppress weeds. The cardboard cuts out the light and the compost you can plant straight into. By them time your plants want to root below the cardboard it will have rotted down.

Bit late for that advice now though!

I only sprayed the weeds on the border between plots as I dont really want to have to excavate the border the rest of the plot is untouched by glyphosate

Hi all, thanks for the advice. I'm cursing getting the site ploughed and rotavated cos while he's been building my raised beds ( ) I've been going up and down the site pulling/digging out lots and lots of bits of weed! Still, at least I can see where it is!
Going back tomorrow to continue with it! Just wishing he'd gone for a smaller plot!!
We're keeping some of the nettles and the brambles that are around the edges but they were a thick blanket across the entire site initially and knowing no better it seemed ploughing was the way to go, nevermind eh !
mithril.

Napalm works pretty well, too. Or Agent Orange. Tough little buggers...