Weeds

[Borlotti]

Not sure where to put this, but hope this is OK
What weeds cause you the most problem.
At the moment I think it is bind weed, convulous (spelling, sorry).
Horse tail/mares tail I have learnt to live with.
Another is a creeping weed, and the roots are not too deep, but it does spread everywhere, and of course the grass.
Stinging nettles not too bad, as I have made some feed with them and have cut them down, but should have been wearing gloves.
My number one hate at the moment is bind weed.

[Borlotti]

[galina]

And mine Borlotti.  I have loads of it and however carefully I dig it out, it always comes back.  Hate the stuff. 

[small]

Creeping shamrock, bittercress, chickweed, and another little creepy thing which I thought was poached egg plant but isn't, but the worst to clear is the grass, I swear if I left it a few months then my patch would be lawn. Bindweed is such fun to dig out that I don't mind it!

[BarriedaleNick]

cinquefoil (Potentilla) is a bugger on our site as well as bindweed.  Esp as the new guy next me has done nothing all year and it is all slowly creeping on to my plot!!

[Deb P]

Couch grass. Hate the blooming stuff, the bane of my plot. I took ages clearing a bit of ground recently, left the roots I'd dug out in my wheelbarrow before going away for a few days......the stuff in the wheelbarrow all sprouted and I came back to a wheelbarrow of grass! The area I'd cleared only had some new annual weeds, easily hoed off, but it is so persistent....

[Crystalmoon]

I've got some bindweed that has appeared in a raised bed, even though I really dug around loads several times to try to get it all out before planting in the bed it is back....hate this stuff but luckily there doesn't seem to be too much of it & I nip it in the bud as soon as it pokes through the soil. Annoyingly it is in a bed that I really don't want to lift the cover off too often as it has kale in it. Such is life.
Horse/Marestail is a really big issue on our site. I am trying to learn to live with it & don't let it get established in my beds but the plot to one side of mine & the one at the end of mine are now just oceans of the stuff so I fear that next year my plot will be under attack big time  I've had to membrane my raspberry bed that joins the plot at the end of mine because dealing with the Marestail was becoming a full time job with me taking at least 4 large garden refuse sacks of it to the tip every week! I know it will still grow under the membrane & it's long roots will allow it to sneak out from under the sides of it but just not having to look at it every day is a relief. I am trying to live with it & will try to use some as a fertiliser tea but it does make me miss my old allotment site that didn't have it at all.

[squeezyjohn]

I have to say that my site is awful for annual weeds because all around us are abandoned waist high plots and a field verge.  There is no way to stop the wind from blowing a complete range of biodiverse seeds on to any patch of spare soil where it invariably germinates when it rains.  Despite fairly diligent digging and root removal when I created my beds I still suffer from a few of the usual suspects when it comes to perennials too.

I've come to treat the annual ones which seed themselves as a kind of permanent green manure which need hoeing down or manually picking out on a regular basis before they flower and actually it's not a bad way of keeping the soil together and protected in winter.  If hoed before they flower they just mulch the soil surface to help keep the next lot down a bit!

My real bugbear is Bindweed which I just can't stop at all ... it tends to be worst in permanent beds like raspberries where it has invaded from under a neighbouring fence and if I don't cut it back by stooping in between the prickly canes it comes up and strangles the plants!  Couch grass still sometimes rears it's ugly head but is much easier to trace underground.  Creeping buttercup is seemingly endless and annoying.  Nettles are pretty much eradicated except for seed which sometimes pops up but can be dealt with as an annual. 

I do have mares tail ... but it's pretty easy to just pick out and doesn't seem to compete with my plants for either light or nutrients so I don't worry about it.  There are a few persistent docks which come from parts of the root I didn't manage to dig out ... but their persistence is nothing compared to my own self-inflicted horseradish!

Finally I have something I can't identify that is obviously deep rooted, creeping and persistent ... it has red/green segmented tough stems and long thin dark green leaves.  It's so long since I let it get bigger than that I can't remember much more about how it grows as I just pull the stems out with the mares tail when I notice them.  Whatever it is ... it's a pain!

[brownthumb2]

what weeds can or can not be used for  /made in to tea ?

[John85]

poppy petals tea for insomnia
bramble leaves(the young ones are the best) for a sore throat and as a booster after a cold