potatoes and bindweed

[hypnophil]

Hi,
I was thinking about putting my spuds in soon and i have a patch on my plot which has a lot of bindweed roots on top and i think in the soil, the rest is ok because i have dug it over and pulled it out,
Can i put my spuds in where the bindweed is and will they help to get rid of it?
Phil

[jacob marley]

This is a misnomer about potato's cleaning the ground up what cleans the ground up is all the hoeing and earthing up that do's the job should be no problem otherwise jaqcob

[HeyWayne]

When I first started this whole allotment mallarky I dug over some beds ready to take spuds. I thought that the roots I dug up were old potato shoots so left them in. Needless to say I soon had bindweed making it's way up each potato plant and had a bit of a job fighting it.

[hypnophil]

thanks guys,
i will put them where i originally planned and get digging up the evil weed.

[Two_Sheds]

Anything growing alongside your potatoes will compete with them for light, food and water.... and your time.

[BayViewPlot]

I have the same problem with half of my plot needing to be dug over but just don't have the time. I've covered it with a tarp and plan on planting through it to keep the weeds down.

Will let you know how I get on

[Sue]

I had a patch infested with bindweed so I put down the cardboard and the mulch then put my compost bag planters full of potatoes on the top. This worked really well, when the potatoes were finished I redid the cardboard and mulch to go through the winter and the ground was looking really good, still some bindweed struggling to survive but it did for everything else. In the spring gave it a third go with the cardboard/mulch treatment and then gave the ground a going over with a hand fork to get out as much bindweed as poss and grew a fine crop of beans in it and then it was ready for the soft fruit which was what the patch was intended for.
I must say I really like this no-dig gardening!
Sue

[Paul Wagland]

Actually spuds do help keep weeds down, on account of their dense foliage which stops light reaching the soil.

They won't crop as well as spuds on really clean ground though - as TwoSheds says there will be competition for light, food and water.

If the bindweed gets a real grip of your plants, just snip it off close to the soil.

[SarzWix]

I grew my potatoes last year in a bed full of mares-tail (aka horse-tail), I just roughly dug it over then put a thick mulch of cardboard covered with well-rotted manure & compost over the bed, watered it down, covered with black weed fabric & left it for a couple of weeks. Then cut holes in the black fabric & planted the spuds through the cardboard & mulch as deeply as possible. The mares-tail did try & grow up through the holes but it got pulled out straight away & we got a reasonable crop of spuds. The black stuff doesn't need to be used if you're trying to avoid plastics, just use more cardboard!

[Phreddy]

When I spotted this thread I was going to suggest the cardboard system.
Can we put it somewhere like the 'How to' locked thread? Would be a good technique to highlight

[Two_Sheds]

I have the same problem with half of my plot needing to be dug over but just don't have the time. I've covered it with a tarp and plan on planting through it to keep the weeds down.

I found tarp to degrade fairly quickly ... I'm still picking strips of blue plastic out of my soil 2 years after I used it. Thick layers of cardboard would be better, as the other Grapes have said