Could I, should I... with a flamethrower?

[snake the squadie]

so you have gone from torching things to slicing things. the support group worked well then. remind me not to drive through your neck of the woods on a dark night

[SarzWix]

shame on you on the website of an organic magazine!!!).

Is GYO a totally organic magazine then? I know they usually come across with mostly organic advice, but I didn't think they'd openly stated "We are an organic magazine"...?

[crichmond]

Its a shame that Paul deems it fit to have a dig at me for using a weedkiller but then totally ignores my answer to his critisism as you say the mag doesnt actually state it is a totaly organic magazine, I assume that they expect that if they did they would have a much smaller customer base as the majority of gardeners are still not organic. If I had realised that I had to be totally organic when I subscribed to such a good magazine I wouldnt have bothered. And why am I critisized by the peeps that write for the magazine when other peeps on here have also posted that they use weedkillers before me without getting any comment what so ever. Or is it that I have said something to offend Paul???

[Paul Wagland]

What's wrong with having a friendly dig?! Each to their own of course, but I would ask that you do your research on glyphoshate and the company that produces it, then decide whether it's worth the lovely healthy exercise it saves you. Black plastic sheeting is more effective than glyphosphate in my experience.

Grow Your Own has been organic since I was editor in 2006. It doesn't exclude non-organic gardeners, but personally I hope it helps to educate them. Just my own opinion - I don't work for them as anything other than a freelancer.

I'd say most gardeners are organic now - would love to see some figures though.

[bluemoon]

My favourite clearing tool is a long-handled machete/slasher. It looks like a cross between a samurai sword and a golf club, because the tip is curved up so it's parallel with the ground as you swing. Because it's nice and long you don't need to be strong to use it well - it goes through inch-thick brambles like thin air.

Far cheeper, quicker and greener than burning propane (or using glyphosphate - shame on you on the website of an organic magazine!!!).

I've just found it here (it's the grass slasher/weeder):

green-shopping.co.uk tools1

My mum saw one of these and bought it for us (this was around seven years ago) it sat in the shed for all that time until OH found it last summer whilst looking for something else. We had a massive bramble patch on our lottie which would have made Sleeping Beauty's prince saddle-up and go home, this thing cleared it to ground level in 20 minutes. I can't recommend it highly enough

[crichmond]

What's wrong with having a friendly dig?! Each to their own of course, but I would ask that you do your research on glyphoshate and the company that produces it, then decide whether it's worth the lovely healthy exercise it saves you. Black plastic sheeting is more effective than glyphosphate in my experience.

Grow Your Own has been organic since I was editor in 2006. It doesn't exclude non-organic gardeners, but personally I hope it helps to educate them. Just my own opinion - I don't work for them as anything other than a freelancer.

I'd say most gardeners are organic now - would love to see some figures though.

Hi Paul,
I dont mind a friendly dig but as far as I can see I am the only person this had happened to, so you can possibly understand my reaction to your comments.
As for doing research, how many people who have just got a new alotment do you think do any research, I would assume about maybe 5%, I didnt, I did what I was told was best and didnt want to lose my new plot, ok maybe that wasnt best but personaly I dont think it was my fault when that is what I was advised to do by the allotment committee.

[SarzWix]

When I first joined this forum, it was because everyone was friendly, no-one had a dig at anyone, friendly or otherwise, and everyone respected everyone else's right to an opinion & a choice. There are other forums out there, mentioning no names, where you can be patronised, preached to, or insulted. We come here because that doesn't happen So while I think it's fair enough to say "I don't do that because the research I've done has made me aware of (whatever)", I don't think that you should be trying to impose your opinion in such a vehement way that it makes people feel uncomfortable. There's been one or two discussions recently which have become a bit more heated than was really necessary Anyway, what I'm saying is "Chill out dude!"

[Hans Mum]

hear hear sarzwiz

[Peter]

We are talking new plot clearance here, yes?

If so, some comments from an allotment site agent.

My site has couch and when that gets cleared the bindweed goes rampant. I always advise newcomers they have two alternatives.
1/. Spray, wait, clear dead stuff, repeat maybe twice.
2/. Put in a couple of hours a day, or a full day each weekend for their first year, just to get rid of weeds, keep forking over picking out roots and hoe.

New plotholders who state from the outset they are organic and insist they will handclear it give me a familiar sinking feeling, that in a year I will be showing the same plot to a new prospective tenant.

A lot of people tend to have unrealistic expectations about how effective their weeding methods will be and how much time they will have to put in.
They give it a good go, but tend to give up when the couch grass re-appears. They also tend to become very unpopular when their resurgent weeds seed.........

Retired folk who go this method tend to make a go of it, people in employment do not.

I prefer people who do not have qualms about using weedkiller to clear overgrown plots. They tend to still be plotholders a few years later and have a clean plot.

Glyphosate weedkiller as a clearance method on a new plot is, in my view, fine, but as a regular weeding method not fine, though I would view hand-paintbrush application to unravelled bindweed shoots as acceptable.

Other methods.
Black plastic, a waste of time unless you remove (burn?) all the growth on top of the soil and then use plenty of weights to hold it down.

Black woven plastic, the same comment.

Carpet does not blow away like the two above and all the comments about poisons are applicable to foam backed carpets only. Ignore the nonsense derived from american purveyors of carpet steam cleaning equipment trying to scare folks into non-chemical cleaning. Get a nice all wool axminster. Most carpet backing (the bit the wool tufts are fastened to) is similar to the blackplastic woven mulch and does not degrade much.


All three man-made mulches are a disaster zone if left down for more than a year, or covered with layers or organic mulches. Just try digging up a woven sheet buried 8" down. Also, very important, whatever man-made mulch you use, dispose of it responsibly when you finish with it.

As an aside the cheap cloches made commercially from chicken wire covered with polythene are very interesting to dig up. Not!

[bubblewrap]

While I have no real problems with people using weed killer I must stress them to take care on how they apply it.
If it is breezy it can blow on to neighboring allotments which might cause "problems"
And weed killers arn't very effective on cooch grass roots so you still have to "dig".
My advice is to dig as much as you can without using weedkiller.

[bluemoon]

I bought a Victoria plum tree from our local supermarket a year ago, when I took it out of it's wrapper I realized it had two branches (one broken) and three, 4 inch long roots (again one was broken). I stuck it on the lottie and it died, - serves me right for doing things on the cheap - then in June it started to put out a couple of buds, which quickly became infested with greenfly. I borrowed a neighbour's bug-gun and gave it a quick squirt. This is the only time I have ever used a chemical on my plot and had the tree not been so sickly that I thought rubbing the pests off would have caused too much damage I wouldn't have used it then. Chemicals have a place, but they should be used sparingly - the whole point of GYO for me is that I know what my children and grandchildren are eating. Many people on our lotties reach for the sprayer before they consider anything else. That's their choice, but in doing so they often allow the chemical to drift, so if anyone is thinking of using these things please consider others and try to contain it as much as possible. I've had to stop my grandson picking and eating things directly from the plot because although we don't use chemicals I never know what might have blown on while I wasn't there.

On a similar note a chap on our lotties decided that the best way to clear his seriously overgrown plot was with a series of huge bonfires. A real slash and burn policy. This took him the whole of last summer and made neighbouring plots almost unusable due to the thick smoke from green wood, made worse by the old, often painted, timber and the fuels which he used to get the fires going. So if you're going to burn off your weeds please try to do it at a time when the lotties are quiet.

[vegnut]

Hi all. A quick quandary for all, and maybe my ignorance, but i thought Glyphosate became inert when in contact with the soil. I'm probably wrong and stand to be corrected

[crichmond]

Whilst I do have a sprayer I didnt use it for applying the weedkiller I use it for spraying the greenhouse with ***** fluid when I clean it in winter.
The weedkiller I used I applied using a watering canfilled from my water butt and it was on days when there was absolutely no wind, this was not through advice given it was because I didnt want any chance of drifting onto the neighboring plots.
I then cleared the dead weeds and waited for a rainy day to burn them as for the bramble I dug this out over a number of weeks.

[bluemoon]

Sorry, Crichmond. I wasn't criticizing you personally, I'm just saying that people can be generally thoughtless and make things unpleasant for others. It doesn't always pay off either. The chap with the bonfires happened to be next to one of the kindest, funniest, most helpful and knowledgeable people on our site. She asked him repeatedly, but politely, if he would mind not lighting the fire for an hour or so to give her chance to get a little work done. In completely, and rudely, ignoring her requests he's cut himself off from a supply of spare seeds, spare plants, surplus veg, book loans, tool loans, advice, cuppas (with biscuits usually) and friendly chats. And a member of our site who has been there since the years when the place was largely abandoned and the current waiting list was only a dream, has been forced to consider giving up her plot.

There's nothing wrong with gardening in the way a person so chooses and I know a number of the old boys on our lotties use chemicals because that's how they've always done it. (I know how they feel, as a keen lifelong photographer I refuse to use a digital imaging system, couldn't bare to look at the dross these things churn out, but I know I'm in an increasing minority and that in a very few years photography will be dead). I was just commenting on the thoughtlessness of others really.

[Peter]

Sadly, some people are just rude inconsiderate buggers!

I wrote my post addressed to grapes, who are polite, considerate buggers!

Grapes therefore do check the wind, the dampness and the presence of neighbours (both on and off site) before spraying or burning.