Planting through cardboard and using roundup

[eieio]

Have been reading other threads and the advice and a few questions really to help me. Using cardboard??? Do I just lay it over the 'crappy' area and make a hole to plant through and what do I do if I use roundup??

[maypril]

Have been reading other threads and the advice and a few questions really to help me. Using cardboard??? Do I just lay it over the 'crappy' area and make a hole to plant through and what do I do if I use roundup??

Covering weeds is used to slow the growth of weeds in an area that you don't intend to plant in for a while.

Roundup is an alternative to manual weeding when you want to clear a bed of weeds before planting.

You don't make a hole to plant through, you cover all of the ground with cardboard, and weigh it down so it doesn't blow off. What this does is suppress weed growth. Then, when the time comes to plant your crops, you take the cardboard off and then manually weed and dig the bed. There will be less weeds than there would have been if you'd left the area uncovered for that period of time.

Roundup is used to kill weeds. You spray the area with Roundup and wait for the weeds to die off (a couple of weeks), then you can dig the bed and start planting.

[zazen999]

You don't make a hole to plant through, you cover all of the ground with cardboard, and weigh it down so it doesn't blow off. What this does is suppress weed growth. Then, when the time comes to plant your crops, you take the cardboard off and then manually weed and dig the bed. There will be less weeds than there would have been if you'd left the area uncovered for that period of time.

You do make a hole!

You put either cardboard down, and weigh it down with bricks, or soil or whatever you have.

Then, and I use a bulb planter, you make a hole through the cardboard and plant the plant.

When it comes to harvest, the cardboard is usually broken down and dug in, and as you do so, you can dig the suppressed weeds out which are weakened due to the lack of light.


You can cover with cardboard at the end of the summer, leave it in place and remove it and weed as you mention - but at this time of year, it's best left in place all summer long.

But all of this is to AVOID using chemicals OP - so if you want to use roundup then that's your choice - but this way you can still plant out your plot now, weed through the summer as weeds appear around the sides of the cardboard; and let the majority die back under the cardboard and remove them when you harvest your crops. Bit by bit.

As you have clay soil, you'll find the cardboard also acts as a mulch keeping the soil from drying out so much during the summer....so if you water just water into the holes that the plants are in rather than the full plot.

[Snadger]

Or you could just dig it!

[Two_Sheds]

You can also use wet newspapers if you have those (like papier mache); I mulched my emerging spuds and fruit bushes with them yesterday.

There was a lot of bindweed coming up near the spuds, so the lack of light will weaken that, and the mulch obviously traps moisture in the soil where you want it- always water the soil before applying a mulch

[Sanjo]

You do make a hole!

You put either cardboard down, and weigh it down with bricks, or soil or whatever you have.

Then, and I use a bulb planter, you make a hole through the cardboard and plant the plant.

When it comes to harvest, the cardboard is usually broken down and dug in, and as you do so, you can dig the suppressed weeds out which are weakened due to the lack of light.

_________________________________________________________________________________

This is how I plant my spuds. Would advise wetting the cardboard before using the bulb planter though as I was on auto pilot this year (keen to get another job done!) and didn't do it. Consequently the bulb planter collapsed as I was pushing it in. It didn't 'alf hurt! (me that is, although it didn't do the bulb planter a lot of good either. I'll have to replace it now)