rotavating weeds

[bearded bloke]

My two ha'peth..........

ALL things/techniques have their time & place,the trick here (the same as many things in life) is using the right one at the right time

[greenishfing]

We took on a couple of extremely weedy allotments several years ago. They had not been cultivated for 15+ years and the soil was very clayey, compacted and a jungle of couch grass. We took them on in spring and I wanted to plant something immediately. Knowing very little about gardening I put a heavy duty rotovater through what was to be my potato bed. I then picked out all the loose weeds and roots that I could see. I then bunged potatoes in holes. When the first leaves appeared I weeded again, and then again when I earthed up. When I dug the potatoes up I weeded again and that was more or less the end of couch grass on that plot. At least most of the weeding was done when the temperature was warmer and I didn't get a bad potato crop.
However on other beds where the soil was not going to be moved around with earthing up we dug all the couch out before planting (a long and laborious processin the cold and rain). All in all I don't think that took any more or less time overall but by the end of our first year we were virtually couch grass-less everywhere.