Help! Couch grass taking over!

[tamsin]

I've had my allotment for nearly a year and am having a really hard time with couch grass. It just keeps coming back! Everytime I go to the allotment I spend more time pulling it out than tending what I've put in or being able to but anything new in. Is there anything I can do that isn't quite so time consuming? Please help!

[tamsin]

[Sprout]

Apart from using weedkiller or covering with plastic sheets/tarpaulin etc, i don't think there's much option other than constantly digging it out. If it was that easy to get rid of, none of us would have any!! I know that it's so frustrating after painstakingly and thoroughly digging over a patch and removing every single piece, to come back a couple of weeks later to find it sprouting again. 

[Justy]

I have the same problem.  I have had my lottie for 18months and built my first beds about 12 months ago.  If it is any consolation these beds are now relatively couch grass free. The few bits that pop up are easy enough to remove. I have edged the beds with wooden planks off pallets which holds back the couch grass off the paths which I then strim down.  Seems to work.  If only I could have as much luck with bind weed..... ;D

[philandjan]

We've been told that, without using chemicals, the only way is to continue digging and removing the roots by hand - allow 3-4 years!

We've also been warned off using a rotavator until we are free of the bl**dy stuff because it just spreads them out even further (and stresses us even further!)

However, the roots do burn well in the incinerator. Wonder if we could use them on the BBQ?

[Mrs Ava]

My number 2 plot was covered in couch, and it still keeps coming through.  Dig dig dig is the only way to go if chemicals are out of the question.  Bloody stuff!   >:(

[Robert_Brenchley]

Just keep going if you don't want to use chemicals; keep digging it out every chance you get, and in the end it does disappear. I've had acres of couch, bindweed, nettles and ground elder, and thopusands of weeds coming up everywhere I dug. It's only the ground elder which is still a problem, and even that's diminishing. It just needs time, but I know, it is frustrating when the weeds keep coming back and smothering your veg!

[Derek]

Hi

This patch was waist high couch grass last year with intermittant raspberries.
I dug out the rasberries and applied Glyphosate...I would have preferred not to use chemicals but it saved a lot of backbreaking hard work...very difficult in the months leading up to having my hip replaced.
It is still free today and will be dug and planted as soon as I can manage it

Derek

[Emma K]

My whole plot is couch grass - we first got the plot in early May, found out that it has not been worked for 6 years! - Scary thought - weve now cut it & burnt the dry grass but am going to have to rotovate it as you can't get a spade in at all (clay) ever get that feeling of lots of hard work looming? :(???:(

[Robert_Brenchley]

It's hard going but worth it in the end. My couch was all spreading out from a grass path in the centre of the plot and I've gradually been getting rid of that and replacing it with bricks salvaged from the stream at the bottom. It's a solution, but it's slow going; after six years I'm well on top of the menace but some of it's still around.