Allotments 4 All
Allotment Stuff => The Basics => Topic started by: antipodes on April 29, 2010, 16:19:49
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I kid you not when I say that last week there was almost NO bindweed on my plot, and last night I walked around and pulled out (Just of the planted bits, about half the plot) a whole bucket full of the stuff! Some of them were already 20 cm long!!! How can it possible grow so long so fast ???
I have given up now trying to eliminate it, it just comes back again and again so I am opting for a plan of progressive control. I have tried this time digging it out with a hand trowel, as even if the roots are still there, I at least dig out about 5 cm of roots which hampers its progress. Forget about stifling it, works for everything else but that...
Blessed be the weedtakers, for theirs is a nice tidy plot...
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Ditto lily of the valley, now infesting my non invasive bamboo stand. I swear the l-o-v waits till I put the fork away then pops up behind my back.
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Bindweed is very susceptible to Glyphosate (Round-up or Resolva).
I eradicated mine in one season.
http://www.allaboutallotments.com/index.html
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Agree - I just lay it out on sheet of paper & paint a few leaves.
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I've been told you can make fertiliser from it. Soak in water for 2 weeks, dilute and use instead of comfrey.
I'd rather have comfrey though....
Round up works great though and this year the stuff is in for a bad time ;D
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I battle with bindweed all the time. It encroaches on my lot from both sides. It is a battle of wills. I think a combination of pulling all the roots out and a bit of roundup is breaking it's back!
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Hold on!!! there is a bindweed...and BINDWEED...first one is quite easy to get rid of..=field bindweed..and the other is hedge bindweed (read bas...d weed)...and that one is utter nightmare ....just as you think you have cleared it...it comes back with vengeance....roots are like big fat snakes with horrible poison fangs and once you touch it it multiplies into thousand of new monsters and while doing it just laughs at you...and it never leaves you alone ..nightmare...real alien ;)
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Hedge bindweed doesn't start growing till the soil is warming up. So you get halfway through April (most years), and it suddenly appears.
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"and it suddenly appears."
..yes that's it!...It hides away..and when you turn your back ..it's there!
So that you all know...I have mother of all bindweed living in my lottie..yes living.. and when you try to tackle it..in it's veins it has pure acid..touch it and it melts your spade away.. :o..That's why I cannot win ::)
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Bindweed is very susceptible to Glyphosate (Round-up or Resolva).
I eradicated mine in one season.
http://www.allaboutallotments.com/index.html
here we have a doctor advocating the use of toxins!!
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/GTARW.php
http://www.ciponline.org/colombia/wwwfuc1e.pdf
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1253709/
http://arjournals.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev.publhealth.25.101802.123020?cookieSet=1&journalCode=publhealth
http://www.mindfully.org/Pesticide/Roundup-Glyphosate-Factsheet-Cox.htm
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I have been trying to get rid of the stuff for years. I have gone against my principles and started using roundup. I put a handful of it into a clear plastic bag and then spray inside. I hope that does at least minimise the spread of the stuff,
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I empathise. We had bindweed in our first garden and it was regarded with disdain; we gave up on the battle with it as that part of the garden was akin to a ski slope and just unworthy of anything more than a strim. We've just got our allotment (after a year or so on the waiting list) and we have started clearing brambles, a host of weeds, nettles and the killer weed - bindweed. Oh fab! All those creamy white roots..... I don't use weedkillers but prefer to dig and clear by hand, so it's going to take a while but as we win the war (we WILL win the war), we can feel a sense of satisfaction... and a few of these :P :P :P won't go amiss either!
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I had a bed infested with hedge bindweed - the big-leaved one with the lovely big white flowers - and I eradicated it in one season by digging it out, no real effort. I pulled out handfulls of the roots the first time and then just a few stragglers the second time.
I have more trouble with field bindweed - the one with the small pink flowers. It's quite deeprooted. But it's only really a problem in the onions. With everything else it has a bit of trouble competing and I just pull it up from time to time.
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I have a confession to make... :-[
Although it is a pig I love the flowers... of both forms... it got me into Morning Glory... If it wasn't so hard to get rid of we would want to grow it.... :-X
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Goodlife you could be describing my allotment!
You know the April fool program about spaghetti growing years ago, well David Dimbleby got it wrong - it grows underground! I get buckets full of the stuff, the hedge bindweed, at this time of year and it never seems to lessen. It is in the half near the gate and most of the other allotment holders comment on how much I find as they pass by, no matter how careful I am to try and get it all out. The chap before me allowed it to grow up his bean poles for a whole season so it had taken a good hold. One day it will be gone.......hopefully!!
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I don't believe the roots live more than a year, so it's susceptible in the spring when it's mobilising the starches stored in its roots and before it's put on much green grown. Dig it up then and it's very weak.
Hedge bindweed has a variety with shades of pink too, it's every bit as lovely as morning glory.
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"I don't believe the roots live more than a year".... :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o
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No, really. I think it makes new roots each year and last year's die.
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I don't believe the roots live more than a year, so it's susceptible in the spring when it's mobilising the starches stored in its roots and before it's put on much green grown. Dig it up then and it's very weak.
Unwashed we must be talking about different plants. ;)
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We took out a very weak hedge a few years ago. Bindweed used to grow up the hedge. Now no hedge for it to climb so it went where ever it wanted to. Rather than fight with it in a border I suggested we got some chickens & put them in that area ;). Just to save OH battling the dreaded weed you understand ;D ;D ;D.
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OK, in fairness my soil is quite light, so once I'd dug it through the new year's growth pulled out without much resistence. I think it's a different story on clay.
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OK, in fairness my soil is quite light, so once I'd dug it through the new year's growth pulled out without much resistence. I think it's a different story on clay.
Yes, my soil is heavy clay, that might explain it, thanks. Each lump has to be carefully broken up and the pieces of root removed - a painstaking job!
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I've had an area that has been infested by it...I have kept it empty now for 3 years..and yes..I have sprayed it too..and I really thought that I have finally managed to kill it all ..and what did I find...yes "tons" of the roots..not killed by the round up..all nice and crispy..ready to go..so now, yet again I dug,,,and dug..tried to get rid of every possible bit..but I know it is not done...
I'm not keen of using weedkillers anyway..but now that I know it just don't reach the roots far enough down..I'm going to result yet another summer for desperate digging...and next winter the area is going to be planted with apple trees...membrane and mulch..and what ever comes from underneath then..well..I worry then... ::)
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I have several species of bindweed on my plot, I have an enormous pile, about the size of a small car of rhizomes dug over the last two years. The hdege bindweed is thick rooted and doesn't penetrate too deeply, it is almost gone now, the field bindweed is a different beast and far harder to eradicate. I dig my entire plot twice a year and remove all bindweed, I then dig out any bindweed that emerges, unless it will disturb nearby crops too much, then i just hoe it off. Just before the field bindweed gets going it grows a crown of rhizomes just beolw the surface, remove this before true leaves form and you seriously impact on the energy reserves.
It is radically reduced now, I am winning and I will win, but it takes time.
Boundaries are an issue, the fence line is choked with hedge bindweed, but last year I found it was out-competed by Sharkfin squash. The empty plot next to me is now in cultivation, so hopefully that will help. I have no permanent paths, I dig the whole plot and then walk my paths for teh season down, to deny the bindweed a permanent base within my boundaries.
In my area bindweed comes up everywhere, every crack in the road, in my lawn at home, up every fence; everywhere. I suspect the whole of my town is just one giant noodle bowl of bindweed underneath.
Having dealt with couch grass in the past, though, I'd prefer bindweed any day. Couch will pierce potatoes and rhubarb roots, bindweed doesn't have that kind of strength.
Sweet potatoes are a relative, pity it is not them that grows like a weed.
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We had it growing in our hedge at our former home. I dealt with it by wearing rubber gloves with normal gloves on top, then dipping my hands in weedkiller and stoking the tendrils all the through to the top-worked a treat!
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Ahhh...so it is not only me then....when you have hedges around the plot + bindweed there is always roots left amongs the hedge..and they must grow 100ft in season ::)
One of the blonkers in our lottie in one desperate moment sprayed the bindweed on hedge..yeah....hedge is no more... ::)..and the bindweed... ;D doing well ;)
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the roots on Field Bindweed can go down FIFTEEN FEET!!! Glyphosate is the ONLY way to get rid when you're faced with that sort of entrenchment!!
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the roots on Field Bindweed can go down FIFTEEN FEET!!! Glyphosate is the ONLY way to get rid when you're faced with that sort of entrenchment!!
I disagree, if the plant is not allowed to set leaves then all the energy used to gow from a spit and half down to the surface has to come from the rhizomes, eventually they are exhausted.
I know bindweed can penetrate to ludicrous depths, but I think for most of us it does not reach that kind of depth.
We don't need to be so obsessive, as long as it does not jeopardise our crops just remove it.
After all the seed can be viable for 30 years, are you going to spray with glyphosate for 30 years?
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No, really. I think it makes new roots each year and last year's die.
The roots must be perennial as they get thicker from one year to the next. Leave it a few years and you end up with great ropes you'll never see in a recently colonised bed.
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HAHA I can see that I really hit a sore spot with this topic!!
I have field bindweed, with small leaves.
I remember the last time we talked about this, TeeGee said just to keep hoeing the seedlings, He may have something there. Digging is just a waste of time, it comes back, but I think the key may be to continually stunt the growth of the seedlings, so the plant has to keep making new shoots.
I find that it is a real bugger because it grows very close to existing plants, like onions, and you have to be really careful pulling it out not to damage your real crops. HOWEVER this year I am trying this tactic, really concentrate on it now, in APril and May which is when it starts to grow, because once it starts winding itself around the young plants, you are buggered. So everytime I see a shoot, hop, out it comes and into a pot specially for this purpose. It does eventually get composted by me, but I rot it down in plastic bags first till it is a slimy mess.
I admit that I will not use Roundup on my plot, or any other chemical for that matter, except Bordeaux mixture. Even on the bindweed, and despite some people saying it is safe, I just don't wish to be ingesting any more chemicals than I already am. I will try and take some pictures of the bindweed though, because it is a bit of a love hate relationship, we spend so much time on it, and there is some satisfaction gained when you pull out big roots, it really should have a bit of blog time devoted to it ;D ;D
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I agree the flowers are pretty on it, and I'd imagine insect life gets a buzz from such delights... but it does like to think it's king of the land, and I disagree. This time of year is when it does really take off (as everything does - growing inches and feet in a blink), but persist and enjoy the boost to the eye that is the heap of "got you out you fiend!" bindweed whose hopes of taking over the world have been thwarted!
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I also have a constant battle with bindweed. There is a satisfaction in digging out those nasty big roots,I just try not to think about all the little roots I've left behind, and it's impossible to dig it out when it is close to plants. Iam trying this year to nip off every shoot I see above the ground in the hope of weakening it but am under no illusion that I will ever get rid of it completely. >:(