paddy pipe ? horse tail?

[jimslad]

paddy pipe ? horse tail?
I have just been given an allotment from the council , it's a total shambles ! thistles , couch grass and I think horsetail , we used to call it paddypipe , in short the council had removed the old shed and greenhouse leaving all the panes of glass then rotavated the lot , resulting in the best field of couch, thistles and paddy pipe, in east Lothian !
I have picked 3 bags of glass and that's not a problem I have sprayed the garden with roundup, and had a good kill rate , I will do this again as the next young weed seeds are brairded now , but the paddy pipe is still as strong as ever , any ideas ??? someone said spray with vinegar ? but I will listen to any advice .
I am not expecting to crop this allotment this season , it will take a long time to get it anywhere near organised , fence ,paths ,shed , greenhouse , glass picking etc , and I'm happy to dig it in the winter and remove as many roots as possible but really need a cure for this horse tail (paddypipe) weed .

[Methe]

I've got a plot covered in horsetail, I'm just digging it out as I go. There's not a lot else you can do tbh, you won't get rid of it....ever!

[alldigging]

Ah get some annual crops sown on a bit. Don't just do the landscaping.
Do annuals so you don't have to worry about digging it all up in a bit.

Newspaper or cardboard mulching can help supress weeds.

kurtail for the mares tail.

[jimslad]

yes I will dig the best I can out of the ground , I was hoping that maybe someone had a "magic" formula

[RaptorUK]

yes I will dig the best I can out of the ground , I was hoping that maybe someone had a "magic" formula

There isn't one . . . chemical control is Kurtail, I looked at it but it's a bit more of a serious weed killer than Glyphosate so I decided against it and use elbow grease instead

[jimslad]

There isn't one . . . chemical control is Kurtail, I looked at it but it's a bit more of a serious weed killer than Glyphosate so I decided against it and use elbow grease instead

Thanks for the info, a wee bit hard graft doesn't really worry me , I'm just looking for ideas that will assist in job of trying to bring this plot back to a working allotment ,

[BertieFox]

Almost nothing will kill horsetail and we have gardened with it for a decade. I even tried covering an area of garden with black plastic for two years, but when it was removed the horsetail was back within the same season!

When weeding it out, and it is a weed you CAN live with as it is far less damaging than many others, let it grow first, until it is fairly tall. Remove any shoots which are producing spores to stop these spreading the plants, but let the fern like pieces grow to a foot or so. THEN carefully pull them out bringing out as much as you can.

I know from bitter experience that if you assiduously try to hoe out or cut off every little stem that comes through, a couple of weeks later there will be four or five shoots coming from the same place. These are even harder to remove. If you pull the horsetail later in the season, it also seems less likely to re-grow.

Horsetail can also be steeped in water for several weeks and produces a liquid which makes a good fungicide, due to the silica in the stems. I found this worked on grey moulds but unfortunately did not prove to be a miracle cure for tomato blight...... if only!