Polytunnel problems

[PGirl24]

Hi, I have a problem and I’m not sure how to resolve it.

My partner lives on 5 acres of land and is great friends with the land owner.
The landowners wife had two 54ft long by about 12ft wide poly tunnels.
After taking down one of the tunnels as it was damaged beyond repair my partner and I decided to utilise the second of the two.
Now this tunnel needs a small repair as one end of it is torn, which is no major issue as we have a friend who uses tunnels a lot and has offered to help us repair it.

The problem is because of the tear in the tunnel a lot of weeds took root.
Nettles and Thistles being the majority.

They were well overgrown, and in some cases were about 6ft tall.
The Nettles we are managing to uproot (even though the root systems are extensive.) But the thistles seeds were unavoidable.
As we started clearing out the overgrown and dead mess all the seeds fell into the soil.
( like dandilion seeds blow off in the wind)

Now the soil in this tunnel is beautiful and would grow some superb vegetables and plants ( we have a stream outside our window and have made a nice place to sit in the summer ) so I want to be able to grow my flowering plants to accommodate this.
But also our vegetables, I know that the planting etc will probably be delayed until next summer, and was maybe hoping to get some garlic in this summer and outside for the winter as the frost helps with them.

But how do I get the thistle seeds out of my soil as I am pretty sure that the minute I water the tunnel these seeds will take root and I will end up spending all my time weeding.

I have a great mist and sprinkler system in this tunnel and great soil so it would be a shame to put all the work to waste because of this and I don’t really want to use weed killer as I would like it to be organic, or as organic as I can make it.

We did find some lovely purple sage and some apple mint which despite all the overgrowth of weeds managed to survive.
Along with some elephant ears.

I just need to figure out how to get rid of these thistle seeds before they germinate.

[OverWyreGrower]

Can you put some sort of ground cover down? Like a weed suppressing membrane and plant through that?

We've got our first PT going up as we speak, and as our ground is so 'weedy' we're covering the inside with membrane. We'll then either plant through it, or create raised beds on top where necessary...

Of course, you'll have some serious weeding to do as well though!

[womble]

I wish I had a 5 acres and 54 ft pollytunnel (it's a sort of parrot) problem

The only thing I can suggest is getting very intimate with your hoe. By that, I mean the thing you use in the garden to cut weeds off with.

[PGirl24]

Can you put some sort of ground cover down? Like a weed suppressing membrane and plant through that?

We've got our first PT going up as we speak, and as our ground is so 'weedy' we're covering the inside with membrane. We'll then either plant through it, or create raised beds on top where necessary...

Of course, you'll have some serious weeding to do as well though!

Thats the trouble, it already has coverings under the soil. A lot of damage was done and we have managed to figure out how to put most of it right.
All the dead and green weeds we took out will be great for compost so no real waste, the farmer next door ( you know what i mean) has cows and we have a good friendship with him and he has said we can use what manure he doesn't need, his daughter who lives on the farm opposite runs horse stabling and we can get horse manure from her.
we also have a wood/coal burning fire which is in use a lot so we have good ash, along with lots of bark chippings so adding all that together in the right quanitys will give us some good compost.

I was debating taking the top 3/4 inches of soil and adding that to the compost bins as the soil is good so I don't want to waste it, but the question then, would be wether the seeds would germinate in my compost bins? Or would they just break down in the compost bins thus adding to the compost and recycling the soil?.

I don't mind weeding at all and to be fair I have done so much already to get this tunnel up and running, along with the brook outside our window which needed serious work doing as it was overgrown with blackberry bushes.
But I would rather not water the tunnel to then have to spend another 3/6 weeks weeding out all the germinated seeds.

I would say a good 10,000 thistle seeds weed came off the dead plants.
and thats a lot off weeding lol

[SarzWix]

This may sound a bit ridiculous... but, have you tried a dustpan and brush?! We took on an allotment last year that was massively overgrown with dandelions. Where the seed heads had come off in clumps, I did actually manage to sweep some of them off the top of the soil
After that, then you're going to have to either cover the soil, or hoe, a lot! Might be an idea to allow the seeds to germinate before you plant anything, and hoe them down straight away?

[OverWyreGrower]

Could you take off the top inch or so and bank it up somewhere with a cover over it? We did this with our allotment originally, and the banking has shrunk in size, but a lot of the weeds etc have died off completely.

[PGirl24]

This may sound a bit ridiculous... but, have you tried a dustpan and brush?! We took on an allotment last year that was massively overgrown with dandelions. Where the seed heads had come off in clumps, I did actually manage to sweep some of them off the top of the soil
After that, then you're going to have to either cover the soil, or hoe, a lot! Might be an idea to allow the seeds to germinate before you plant anything, and hoe them down straight away?

The brushing doesn't sound so strange, and if I hadn't already raked the area to get rid of the debris I might have given it a go.
But I used the rake to get rid of a lot of the broken dried stems so its a bit moot now.
The soil is good but very dry on top at the moment.
About 3 inches of dry (dusty) sandy soil and then about 6ft of good damp soil.

Could you take off the top inch or so and bank it up somewhere with a cover over it? We did this with our allotment originally, and the banking has shrunk in size, but a lot of the weeds etc have died off completely.

Thats what I thought with my compost bins/piles because they would die with no light but before they died the would germinate this giving me recycled soil?

Or maybe I'm just crazy and have no idea what I'm talking about lol

[poly]

Just a thought, if you are not planning on growing until later in the year/next year, is it worth watering your weed seeds and repeatedly hoeing them off. Then re-raking to bring more seeds to the surface in an attempt to germinate and kill as many as possible. Thus reducing weed seeds for future years.

[Galileo]

Seeds do not contain a large store of nutrients so are easy to kill when they are very young. Hoe twice a week because the seeds will expend a lot of energy germinating and you need to cut off every leaf before it can manufacture food for itself in the sunlight. They wont last long.

I had a bad problem with weeds when making my vegetable beds but when I got it clear I went out every day or two and got every last weed that dared to poke its head above ground. I did this for a few weeks and now have no problem. I just get the odd weed now. Its easy work weeding just germinated weeds. You must must get to them early at least once a week or better twice a week. Your problem will be gone before you know it.

[Duronal]

I have a similar problem as i built my tunnel on last years open ground, every drop of water produces a weed. i found the answer is to water into pots near to each plant, this saves on water, cuts down on weeding and keeps the plants with a root system that chases the water as it perculates down, it also seems to keep the tunnel less humid and better prepared for a day where you can't get down to water. Over time i'm sure that you actually start to create a resevoir of water under the soil surface approx 20cm down but i've not read anything about this.

Hope this helps

D