Choice of two plots - advice needed

[sparrow100]

Personally I'd dig out the couch and drown it in a barrel. It's little more effort than burying and on the plus side you then have some lovely stinky compost tea for your veggies and the remainder can go on the compost heap. I'm suspicious of burying it.

[Snadger]

You've deffo made the right decision on which plot to have and not to use roundup.

Dig a bit, shake the soil from the couch grass roots, dig abit more until you have a small area to plant or sow something about the 4 foot wide and the full width. Plant something like onion sets in the dug and raked area and carry on digging abit more ad infinitum, digging planting, digging planting.
That way you won't sicken yourself with digging and will be able to start growing stuff...........which after all is the reason you got the plot in the first place!

[DannyRam]

It's like eating an elephant. Just one bit at a time!!!


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[Gertrude's Ghost]

I have to agree that plot 2 would be my choice. There is a huge willow tree in the next garden to mine that not only produces constant shade over half my garden in summer but its roots prevent planting under most of the canopy. Go for the open one.

[fran2340_1]

Go with the shed will save you money if it's in good condition.

[Chrisuk]

I picked up the keys today and have made a start!

I've manage to dig over a 2 and a half by 5-6 meter patch so far. There was a lot of couch grass in there and I've managed to get out all of it that I saw. I'll keep a close eye on it though.

Here's a picture:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/f8c0rsts3upm0sg/IMG_0371.JPG

Would I be able to plant straight into that, or would I need to dig it over a couple more times first?
Also, what size beds should I create? I plan on getting in potatoes and onion sets first.

[Martin H]

I would plant into that. You'll get another chance to remove couch grass when you dig a trench to put the spuds in. There will be lots of annual weeds springing up too, but potatoes compete well with weeds and onion sets have got a head start on them.

Good luck!

[Chrisuk]

I've been digging more of my plot and some parts of the allotment are riddled with couch root. I've literally taken 13 baskets from one area, and re-dug it over 4 times and am still pulling up bits of root.

The path between my plot and the next is festooned with couch root too. Would putting a barrier between my plot and the path be worthwhile? I'm hoping that adding some form of barrier would stop new infestations and would leave me to deal with the existing one, which I could reduce over time. If a barrier would work, what would be best to use? What depth to take it etc.

[Raybon]

Plot 2 looks fine. Just take one bit of junk home with you every time you visit, it will soon go. You can't have too many bins for compost, weed tea, storing stuff. Old crates are great for transporting pots to be planted out. A good bonfire will get rid of lots of rubbish very quickly.
Good neighbours an added bonus!

[Chrisuk]

I've been putting a lot of work in and have planted a lot of potatoes and managed to get all my onions in:

https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resi...t=photo%2c.jpg

Next section to dig will be my broad beans (chitted at home and looking absolutely huge already) and runner beans. By the shed I've dug over an area ready for an asparagus bed, and am just digging out my strawberry patch.

I've also got other veg's chitting and will be ready to plant in a few weeks.

The beds I've dug so far have been absolutely swimming in couch root. I've had to dig them repeatedly over a week to get all the bits I could find out. I then dug a trench to stop the rest of the plot re-infecting the clean bits:

https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resi...t=photo%2c.jpg