Bindweed - horrid stuff!

[Jerryfb]

A tip: The roots are a nice creamy white. When you have dug over your patch and got as many roots out as possible get your hose and spray all over the soil for a good few minutes. It will wash and reveal any roots left lying around on the surface. You can pick this up and help reduce the regrowth

[southern softie]

My garden is 260ft long and 100ft wide and has huge patches of bindweed. This winter I dug over a patch about 20ft x 30ft that was full of the weed. Luckily my friend has a mini-digger that I borrow to make it a painless process. I picked out as much as I could but there was still lots left. I have planted 70% of it with potatoes, and the rest with onions and cabbage. The potato area seems to have stiffled the growth compared to the rest. I spend about an hour twice a week pulled the weed off the onions and cabbage. The potatoes seem to be coping with about an hour of weeding every other week. Obviously the potatoes are blocking out the light so it'll be interesting to see what happens there next year when I rotate the crops. And, as they break up the soil up, it also makes pulling the root up a lot easier.

I have read that mexican tagetes (marigolds) root excrete a chemical that can help eradicate bindweed and ground elder (got plenty of that too, bloomin' Romans brought that over with them along with the snails ) but they need a whole season and that doesn't help me harvest veg.

Digging it up as often as possible must reduce it even if it take a few years, Persistance is the key I think. Don't give up, together we can fight this evil. Be strong

[craftygirl24]

I love everyone's sense of humour about the insidious bindweed! Especially finefencer - I haven't got hobnails - will DM's do? southern softie - is that ordinary marigolds? And at least I don't have ground elder, poor you. And do you all have as many pests as me? I can boast snails, slugs, caterpillars, you name it, I have it! It's not unusual to see me in my garden (on my own for goodness sake!) waving a stick and shouting at cabbage white butterflies. What's more, it doesn't stop them, they STILL lay their eggs on my brassicas!

[bluemoon]

Just keep at it, pull, dig, hoe. Our current lottie was infested, but five years on we have it under control - though sadly not eliminated.

[southern softie]

No not ordinary marigolds. Tagetes minuta or Mexican Marigold, a tall upright marigold plant with small flowers, is used as a culinary herb in Peru, Ecuador, and parts of Chile and Bolivia, where it is called by the Incan term huacatay. Huacatay paste is used to make the popular potato dish called ocopa. Having both "green" and "yellow/orange" notes, the taste and odor of fresh Tagetes minuta is like a mixture of sweet basil, tarragon, mint and citrus. (thanks to Tagetes - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

[ishmael]

I love everyone's sense of humour about the insidious bindweed! Especially finefencer - I haven't got hobnails - will DM's do? southern softie - is that ordinary marigolds? And at least I don't have ground elder, poor you. And do you all have as many pests as me? I can boast snails, slugs, caterpillars, you name it, I have it! It's not unusual to see me in my garden (on my own for goodness sake!) waving a stick and shouting at cabbage white butterflies. What's more, it doesn't stop them, they STILL lay their eggs on my brassicas!

netting is the answer, there.

[BumbleB]

Mine is all amongst large tall shrubs that have been there 20+ years. I have no chance of getting to the roots so just have to keep pulling!

[Jerryfb]

What's funny is the instinct to pull the stuff up. I was in the local park the other day playing cricket with my young boys and the ball was hit into one of the flower beds. Off we went to look for it and within a couple of minutes I was suddenly pulling out the bindweed as I was looking for the ball. I realsied what I was doing and went back to the job in hand.

[Alison]

I can see bindweed in my sleep these days!

[Keith2202]

I can see bindweed in my sleep these days!

Me too. As I have just taken over the plot, all I am currently doing is digging up couch grass and bindweed, after a long session I can't sleep properly as that is all I can "see"!

[allotmentlady]

dreaded stuff, its a job for life......

[snakeshack]

at least the horsetail gives it something toclimb up on the lottie,glycophosphate doesn't kill that either

[shoreham_steve]

I'm a 'puller' mostly, but also a 'digger' if I'm feeling energetic. You'll never defeat the stuff you can only really 'manage' it.
I also seem to be overrun with 'quotation' marks. Sorry.

[geoff]

Like most of us on this forum, you might like to be organic, but you also have to be realistic, especially if, as you say, you have a bad back. Use a branded name glyphosphate weedkiller, and spray it carefully just onto the bindweed. Regard it as a 'once only 'treatment, or a single exception to the rule