New beds?

[newbies]

Hi all,
Just a quickie.  My first plot was ready done, beds in the right places, compost bin etc.  But, now i have taken over a badly neglected plot, with no beds marked out.  I'm having top soil delivered, and just need to know how to go about my new beds.  Can I just make borders with wood, and put cardboard down, then apply my top soil, my thinking is that the cardboard will deprive the weeds of just about everything.  Or, should I dig, dig, dig, dig my whole way through and clear the bed, thus applying top soil after clearance? ::)

Many thanks.

[newbies]

[triffid]

Hello there!

It depends on what you've got by way of weeds on this neglected plot. Brambles and couch grass, for instance, will work their way through almost anything: if you have these or other persistent perennial nasties, I'd vote for the

dig, dig, dig, dig my whole way through

option!

And something tells me that if all you had to worry about was chickweed you wouldn't be bothering to cover it with cardboard...  ;)

[saddad]

I'm of the manic digging clearance persuasion myself...
;D

[supersprout]

... and I'm in the cardboard-and-mulch camp ;D
why not try both? that's how I started no-dig :)

[angle shades]

:)

and I do both  :))depending on how I feel on the day ::) :P/shades x

[manicscousers]

physical impairment, wow that's a good phrase, makes us have to go down the no dig road...3 years ago, we had mares tail, and lots of it, in a bed on the old allotment, we covered it with cardboard, thick well rotted manure, newspaper then black plastic. let it rot over winter and planted potatoes through the plastic the next year, brilliant potatoes that year and no sign of the mares tail when we uncovered it, unfortunate, really, that the club just scraped the whole lot up !!

[saddad]

That stuff is still there... it just doesn't bother coming up in fertile soil.... too much competition. Kill it with kindness, that's what I say!
8)

[manicscousers]

it really likes cold, hard clay soil that never gets disturbed, we've got it on the new plot, making the beds as friable as possible means we can pull it out as much as we can ;D

[artichoke]

<< making the beds as friable as possible means we can pull it out as much as we can >>

On that subject, I recently cut down the asparagus fern and hooked out YARDS of thick white convulvulous roots, so satisfying. The soil there was in perfect condition, and the convulvulous roots, so liable to grip the clay and snap off short, had no fight left in them. I know there are some still in there, but I'm not frightened of them now. I'll get 'em in the spring when they show their noses.

[dawn34]

hi i know how you feel we have two lotties and they are both like weed city, manage to get an hour or so over there digging my through, i feel like not getting anywhere but hey i'm still hard at it