Topic: Couch Grass - Fire and Chemical attack

[mikey]

morning all,

Couch Grass, sharing current experiences  ....

My Son Jamie and I have recently taken on a Lottie. The plot has not been worked for at least 9 months but is in remarkably good shape. The previous tenant (or maybe his neighbours ?) had spread straw all over the plot. This has prevented any large scale takeover by Nettles, Brambles etc.

The No. 1 problem we have is Couch (Twitch) Grass. We decided that we would work the Lottie without chemicals of any kind, but have had to resort to Weed killer in this case.

Last week (Good Friday) I burned off an area +/- 10 mtr x 5 mtr with a 'Sheen' flame gun, very efficient and the ground looked wonderful with black burned grass and bare earth.

Yesterday, when we arrived we were greeted by the whole bed covered in new shoots some +/- 5 cm high, absolutely amazing in only 4 days. We are having the current unseasonal warm weather, but no rain for at least 8 days.

The 'experts', some of whom have been on this site for up to 30 years !! have all advised us (unanimously) that the only certain way to win, is to use Roundup.

Off we went to Focus, bought our Roundup (with a second Mortgage at £14.98) in concentrated form and closely following instructions applied to another area of the Lottie which has a heavy covering of Couch and Cow Parsley.
Our 'experts' tell us that we should wait around 4 weeks before digging or Rotovating.
We plan on building raised beds and opinion is that a week after applying Roundup we could build our 'shutters' and lay cardboard + newspaper + soil + compost, give the bed a good soaking with Chicken pellets dissolved in water and plant.

Mikey

[Deb P]

You need to wait until the couch has absorbed the weedkiller and taken it down to the roots to kill them. If you cover too soon, the roots will not have absorbed enough and will regrow......I don't honestly know if a week will be long enough, but if you were building a lasagne bed, you wouldn't have to spray first, just make the raised beds very thick to suppress the couch.

[emmy1978]

Got rid of ours by serious diggin' and clearin'. Used a fork, dug up clods of it, beat hell out of it with the back of the fork and into the barrow, now have 3' mound of the stuff.
We have lovely clear soil now (1/2 the plot), few bits of new growth coming up here and there, nothing that a good hoeing doesn't fix. Was back-breaking for a few weeks but i'm very glad we did it that way.
Also, the lovely peeps on here have told me i can rot it down as heap, put some in bucket of water as kind of liquid fertilizer. Think was Triffid, can't remember. Will try and look for the thread.
Any bits of dug ground that i've not planted up i've covered with weed suppressant, cardboard, old rug out of shed! Keeps it totally weed free till you come back to plant. Also bits that i want to dig in next week or so gets covered to give me a head start.
Have fun!

[Robert_Brenchley]

I'd leave it a couple of weeks at least, until the couch starts looking pale. I got rid of my couch simply by digging it out; it was difficult for a couple of years, and then I got on top of it. It's a lot easier to handle than ground elder.

[mikey]

Robert ..... shush with those words 'G****d E***r'  ;)

We lived at our last home (in Scotland, close to Aberdeen) for 9 years. Inherited GE and never got rid of it. Spent a fortune on weedkillers and broke our backs digging ... in the end we sold the house ... (just kidding  ;D ;D)

Thanks all for the tip to be patient and wait longer before building the beds ... patience was never my strong point  ;D

Mikey

[louise stella]

Couch grass is not a weed - it is an evil being sent from planet zog to try and drive allotmenteers mad!!!!!

OH! - that's just me then?

mutter mutter mutter........

LOuise
X

[spacehopper]

Couch grass is not a weed - it is an evil being sent from planet zog to try and drive allotmenteers mad!!!!!

...along with it's even more evil twin marestail...

[saddad]

Hands and Knees is the best solution to Couch grass...
 :-\

[louise stella]

Hands and Knees is the best solution to Couch grass...
 :-\

Yes - i'm with you on that - not a fan of weedkillers.......

Louise

[ellkebe]

Hands and Knees is the best solution to Couch grass...
 :-\

Prayer? - might work, I'll give it a go  ;D