Drowning in chickweed!!!

[bobbin]

These past months on the allotment I have lost 2 sowings of carrots,salad leaves,fennel and some flowers to chickweed. The seedlings were simply smothered by the damn stuff. I weed my allotment (to the amusement of others) relentlessly.So its not down to neglect. I also find that any enclosure such as that around carrots even seems to encourage chickweed. The crop smothering my netted salad leaves was astounding.Can anyone rid me of this weed or at least a way to tame it? Also I never dig it in and always try to catch it before it seeds.
Oh and if anyone is tempted to say.... A YEAR TO SEED, SEVEN TO WEED>>>>>DON'T !!
Nor do I want to eat it. HELP PLEASE.

[taff]

Mulching over winter seems to be your only option.
You can dig and bury it, but digging will bring more seeds to the surface, so personally, I'd go the mulching route. A good thick layer of a few inches at least, you can place down sheets of newspaper wetted, or cardboard first, before mulching.
DOn't dig it in either, just leave it on the surface.

[Snadger]

Don't look upon it as a weed ............its a green manure!

[Newton]

Only if not killing off your intended crop.......

[Two_Sheds]

I get chickweed really bad too - it's much worse on the patch at the bottom that I ... dug over (getting spuds out). Yes, digging causes weeds.
This was my root patch this year so my carrots were smothered in chickweed. I wait until it's flowering so it's at its biggest, then seek out the root and pull. You get a satisfyingly big clump out like that.

Don't waste your time trying to pull out the smallest little bit. Wait until it gets big (unless it's causing your crop to suffer, in which case pull it out as soon as you see it)

Hoeing will scrape it off really quickly, but you'll be scraping off some soil and exposing even more weed seeds to the light if you do. It's your choice: hoe or pull by hand

[Aberdeenplotter]

Biggest problem with chickweed is that if you don't get it out by the root it regrows more vigorously. if you do hoe it off, keep hoeing regularily even at this time of year. The disturbance of the soil and the roots will eventually kill it off and also any other seeds which have the audacity to try to germinate at this time of year. Contrary to what has been said, digging does not cause weeds. Digging may expose seeds already in the soil which are then able to germinate close to the surface but as said, regular use of the hoe is the answer to this. Best remedy for me at this time of year is to dig it down at the bottom of the trench. It is rapidly becoming too cold for anything to germinate and a plot dug over now and left rough and exposed to the winter weather should be in excellent strip for the new growing season come springtime.

[zazen999]

You need to sow into a stale seed bed.

Prep your bed, a month before you are going to sow [usually 2 weeks, but a month will do it better].

Water as if you have sown your seeds. Then each week, hoe off the weed seedlings and rewater.

After a month, your weed seeds should all have germinated. Do NOT touch the surface of the soil now, but sow your seeds and cover them with a layer of compost that is weed free. For carrots or parsnips, plain clean sand will sort it.

With everything else, grow in modules, plant out when 2-3 inches or more tall. And mulch around them once they are in. Grass clippings works very well for this.

[Two_Sheds]

As an aside to what Zazen says, my carrots all came up in a weed-free strip (the chickweed appeared between the carrot rows).

Because of soil capping, I sow my carrot seed into a wet drill, then top that with potting compost (it's sterile, so doesn't contain any weed seeds)

[Two_Sheds]

mulch around them once they are in. Grass clippings works very well for this.

Unless you get your grass clippings from my mate John ~ then they'll contain 100s of grass seeds which will turn your plot into a bowling green

[rustylady]

And unless you get your grass clippings from a mate who uses weedkiller on his/her lawn.

[Snadger]

Best Kelsae onions I ever grew were buried under a sea of moisture retentive chickweed.