Got my lottie today to rotavate or not?

[greengas]

Thank you it is bare to a degree under the plastic I have not dug the shorter grass out! I have dug my first bed yesterday and if it stops raining here in Bristol(been constant since at least 6-30 this morning) I will get to lottie and plant it out with dwarf french beans, beetroot and lettuce. I would like to get another 2 beds dug if I can as I have 80 seed spuds coming tommorow from Alan Romans. The part I have found the most hardest is once I have turned the soil it is full of roots Should I be aiming to get all of these out as I believe that would be an impossible task!

[Alison]

It's worth the effort to get as many roots out as possible, hard work but saves time in the future. As an experiment, OH sieved every scrap of a double depth of a 10' by 4' bed to remove everything and that bed is markedly less weedy than any of the others which have just been double dug and had weeds / roots removed by hand as spotted. However this takes a long time, I find to properly double dig a bed of this size it can take me up to 6 hours on our plot. We were lucky to be doing this in early spring before much needed to be planted out though.

[WillyNelson]

I tend to pick out the more troublesome robust roots like bindweed, thistle & dandelion but I leave the smaller ones which should rot down under the turned earth. Any that sit on the top get raked off.

[greengas]

I have just returned after digging another 2 beds and planting bed 1! Today I have done beds 2 and 3 different by digging out a spades depth and piling the earth with the roots in. My plan is to plant earlys in bed 2 and 3 and then refill the bed with the sieved earth as I earth up said tatties. I know it's been bloody hard work but I hope I am saving myself valuable time in the future. I will post some new photos when I get a chance.