rotavating weeds

[babyjohnny]

hey folks,
I just wanna run a kind of experiment...... so dont hate me lol

firstly people say don't rotavate bad weeds (couch, dandelion etc..) as this will make it worse
- how ever -
how many people have actually tried it for themselves and found this to be true
or....
is it something someone once said and it then got repeated and repeated and it became true...

my thinking is, when you dig a bed over you hand pick the weeds out, but if you rotavate you still go through and hand pick the weeds out afterwards so is there much difference? (using slashers not tilling blade)

so what i'm going to do is 2 beds side by side - rotavator vs garden fork and see if one is more effective than the other or if its a myth

[SarzWix]

When you dig with a fork and come across a couch grass root, you can get hold of it and gently pull it so that a big long chunk comes out in one piece. When you rotavate, that chunk can be chopped into 20 pieces or more, and chances are you'll only find half of them in the churned up soil. The other 10 pieces will sprout and turn into new weeds. Ten times worse than before you chopped it up...

[alldigging]

This plot was rotavated.
One of the main problems with rotavating is it is seen as an easy answer. It is seen as a quick method of getting soil ready to plant in. And it is. Especially if you have nice soft soil. But it also makes the soil nice for weeds to grow in. And if you just leave them in then they'll grow.

An allotment takes time and effort. There are some short cuts but just rotavating isn't one of them. You can dig and remove tap root weeds, then rotavate to break up the soil. And if you're prepared to then remove the weeds regularly then you can get on top of it.

Without regular time spent on it though the surface will just grass over and it will be like you never did anything.

[roitelet]

I did it once years ago on a patch of creeping butercup and it was a nightmare, just chopped them up and every bit re-grew. There is a chap near me who rotavates all the time, no hand weeding, he just runs the rotavator between the rows about every two weeks and keeps the weeds down. Don't know what would happen if he missed a few weeks!

[SarzWix]

Oh, and I should say that it was my OH who insisted on rotavating rather than digging when I broke my ankle

[Two_Sheds]

people say don't rotavate bad weeds

You need to understand how weeds reproduce. It isn't a case of "bad" weeds, it's a case of not rotavating those weeds that reproduce from root cuttings, eg. couch grass, horsetail, bindweed, comfrey.


Daisies don't reproduce from root cuttings, only from seed. Therefore rotavating daisies won't make more daisies, but rotavating couch grass will make 100s more couch grass plants

Annual meadow grass spreads by seed, not by root, so can be rotavated.

Creeping buttercup spreads by runners (like strawberries and cinquefoil): burying will kill a lot of plants, but buttercup doesn't mind being buried, and will survive it.

Dandelions are very, very hard to kill: they survive drought and drowning. Bob Flowerdew once nailed one to his shed door for weeks, then replanted it and it regrew (so the legend goes).

[veggiechicken]

I've never rotavated because of the problems of chopping up roots like couch and marestail and I see enough of that without using a rotavator! So I haven't voted as nothing seemed appropriate.
Good luck and don't forget to come back and tell us the results

[Aberdeenplotter]

Even in a clean plot, rotovating can be problematic as the rotovator goes down only a crtain distance and it then causing panning below which prevents optimum drainage.

I totally agree with the others about chopping up the roots of pernicious weeds. Couch will grow from pieces as small as ¼" long. It is very difficult to find such small pieces after rotovating and it is essentia;l to get every last piece out of the ground. It is much more efficient to dig the ground over with a narrow tined fork picking out as you go. It is hard work but if you don't do it, you are just storing the problem up for later and if you have rotovated, well it pains me just to think about it.

[VirginVegGrower]

I voted no and it should have been yes. I thought it was no don't do it!

[WendyC]

Two men took over the plot next to me last year. It wasn't too bad as most was covered with tarpaulin etc (whatever was to hand when myself and another committee member covered it). One fine spring weekend they hired a rotavator and rotavated the whole plot. Apparently it was quite amusing as they kept bickering about whose turn it was! The weeds and grew like mad including over where a few seeds were planted. Then we had a dry spell, the only one in the whole year. Weeds grew more with sun. One evening one of them appeared, did a double take as the plot was now a sea of green. He tried to get a fork in but it had baked hard. After some mutterings he gave up and left. Weeds grew more until they were asked to cover it again. Nearly a year on I've never seen anything happen on the plot, it is still covered. Don't know yet whether they are coming back. If they had covered the weeds and done a bit at a time, handweeding as they went, it could have been a productive plot. I moved plot at the same time and had similar to deal with but had a reasonable growing year and not too weedy.
Yes it does make it worse.

[Martin H]

When I acquired my couch-ridden plot I went over it with a fork, a bit at a time. It was pretty successful in getting a lot of the stuff out - by the second season it was pretty well clear - but it was much more work than I'd expected. The trouble is, as the weeks roll by the stuff you haven't tackled yet has got its feet down more firmly so progress gets slower and slower.

If I had to do it again, I would probably start by rotavating the lot and then covering it up. Then I could go over it carefully with the fork a bit at a time; the chopped up pieces would give themselves away with their blanched re-growth and I can get deep enough to break up any cultivation pan. My theory is that the chopping and covering will reduce the vigour of the re-growth even if it increases the quantity; while the soil will be easier to fork over because of being mechanically turned.

I've never done it, so I voted for don't know. I'm pretty sure that no machine is going to save you more than 25% of the total effort of bringing a couch plot into full cultivation though.

[zazen999]

And don't forget when you rotavate you kill loads of worms.

[taff]

shame they don't grow from being chopped up.....

[alldigging]

The soil has to be right for rotavating though. No thick roots, no huge rocks, and no long weeds that'll tangle up on the blades... And if it's too wet it'll all just stick to it.

I have rotavated - usually after I have had a go at turning the soil to get the tins and bottles out.
And when I say 'I' I do actually mean Nic not me.

[Sheneval]

hey folks,
I just wanna run a kind of experiment...... so dont hate me lol

firstly people say don't rotavate bad weeds (couch, dandelion etc..) as this will make it worse
- how ever -
how many people have actually tried it for themselves and found this to be true
or....
is it something someone once said and it then got repeated and repeated and it became true...

my thinking is, when you dig a bed over you hand pick the weeds out, but if you rotavate you still go through and hand pick the weeds out afterwards so is there much difference? (using slashers not tilling blade)

so what i'm going to do is 2 beds side by side - rotavator vs garden fork and see if one is more effective than the other or if its a myth

May I suggest you try a 3rd method - handweed on hands and knees - I guarantee if you do it properly you will be relatively weed free until the annual weeds come along - then you can use the hoe to keep them in check.

I used this method last June on my grandkid's plot and weeds have been relatively few, only the odd bit of grass since. I did the same with half my plot in November and December and have had only one or two weeds at most to remove to date.

It takes a bit longer but the results are well worth the effort.

My son in law dug over the other half of the plot and we took out the weeds as he did so - since January I have removed about 10-12 docks and the same number of buttercups from this part of the plot.

Of course your fellow allotmenteers will regard you as either mad or at best pernickety but you will have the last laugh as they will be pulling weeds or looking at them whilst you stand and admire your bit of plot smiling all the while.

Good luck with yuor experiment