Topic: Battling mares tail..help

[galina]

Crystalmoon,  makes very good sense.  Whenever we have a plant with very deep roots, it will bring up minerals from the subsoil.  Using marestail for fertiliser will make this available to our plants.  Seems a good plan

[Borlotti]

Learn something new every day, just looked up nettle feed and said toms and roses not too keen on it, so hopefully it is OK for peas, well they did OK last year, not sure if it was luck or the nettle feed.  Hopefully a better day tomorrow and I will certain pull up marestail and put it in a bucket of water, quite excited now.  Some of the stinging nettles we leave for the butterflies, insects but my allotment site is certainly not short of nettles.  The Council has cut the brambles back, so don't know if there will as many blackberries this year as usual.  Any clever people on here know what plants I should feed with my nettle feed, don't want to kill anything.  Thanks, and the marestail feed when I have made it.

[Crystalmoon]

Hi Borlotti this year I have started putting nettles into my compost bins rather than making a tea with them as I could never work out which plants actually benefit from the nettles specifically. I am growing comfrey & once the plant is more established I will use it to make teas but for a couple of years I will just add one large leaf to each spud I plant. I plan to hunt the internet to try to find out the best uses for all the natural fertiliser teas. As soon as this awful wet weather passes by I will be starting my Marestail tea.

Hi Galina yes apparently Marestail is super rich in lots of nutrients because it can access the ones much deeper than any other plant roots ever venture. I am relieved to have found a use for it & hope to discourage people on my allotment site from using the tonnes of chemicals they seem to be using to try to kill it off. As the council have let some plots become completely overgrown with it (yet there is a huge waiting list) it really is pointless using chemicals as spores from the wild plots will enable Marestail to repopulate every plot anyway.

[Crystalmoon]

Hi Borlotti I just had a look in an ancient gardening book I bought at a Bootfair last weekend & it says nettle tea is great for green leafy veg so the brassica family should love it.

[Crystalmoon]

Oh and Comfrey is great for tomatoes 

[Jeannine]

Well it seems like a very good idea but if I start processing the rotten stuff after all the moaning I have done I think my family will really think my cheese has slipped off it's cracker, and anyway it feels good to chuck it and gently  cuss a bit as it flies through the air to the bin.

[galina]

https://www.gardenorganic.org.uk/sites/www.gardenorganic.org.uk/files/resources/fflp/A41-Making-liquid-feeds.pdf

It is really difficult to find exact nutrient information about comfrey and nettle tea.  Presumably because nutrients vary quite a bit throughout the season.  But in the early years of HDRA tests were done on comfrey and Bocking 14  provides more nutrients than it uses from the soil because it draws up so much from the sub-soil.  Also it does not spread by seeds. 
Nettles and comfrey are pretty much universally usable for everything.  Anything from green will have a decent nitrogen content.  Comfrey's high potash content is said to be particularly good for anything flowering, especially tomatoes, pepper and squash.  The HDRA article above mentions both comfrey and nettle as a nutrient top-up and supplement to go with normally prepared soil.  Especially good for fast growing and high producing veg. 

[Plot22]

My allotment neighbour has a prolific problem with mares tail. He largely ignores it just pulling it up now and again. It has started going under the path onto my allotment and I have tried all sorts to get rid of it before it takes over as it has on other allotments on our site. This year I thought take the bull with the horns so I purchased Kurtail Gold in January when I got a small discount. It is not cheap but I have enough for many years if necessary. The mares tail for whatever reason was late developing this year I thought I had wasted my money ! Then it arrived I let it grow to full production and then sprayed it . On individual bits I used a plastic bottle with the bottom cut out and then sprayed through the top to prevent drift. Result after 10 days the stems started turning black after 15 days the whole plant was black and dead as a do do. The odd bit that has emerged I have sprayed using my bottle same result. I appreciate not everyone likes spraying but it seems to be working for me.

[Borlotti]

Sorry but i think you have wasted your money, just cut it down and learn to live with it. I prefer it to bindwind, and plants seem to tolerate it. It has been here along time and all the methods dont seem to work, it will come back next year. Still doing my 100 a day, twist and pull, but best to make friends with it. Anyway good luck.