In message , ken cohen
writes
Hi everyone

I'm new to gardening. Just been given my first allotment, and spent
a few days with a brush cutter clearing the dense undergrowth, and was
planning to spray the plot with weedkiller, cover it with black
plastic for the winter, and then start digging it over, and planting
things in say February. But have I overdone it? I've cropped the
vegetation so close to the bare earth that there's hardly any green
showing. I was going to use glysophate, which I understand can only
be absorbed into the root systems of the grass and weeds via the leaf,
and is destroyed by contact with the soil. So this seems to mean
that either I give the weeds a chance to recover before I can use
glysophate on them, or I need to find another safe weedkiller.

Any comments?

You would probably have had an easier time spraying glyphosate on it and
then cropping it to the ground a couple of weeks later. But no matter,
leave everything to grow on for a couple of weeks and then hit the nice
new soft regrowth with glyphosate. Leave it a couple of weeks to take
effect and then when it is all tinder dry you can have a bonfire.

Any regrowth after that you can hit as needed and start digging the
roots out. Depending what weeds are present it may take a few goes.

Buttercup tends to resist glyphosate and will recolonise the bare earth.
Dandelions and thistles seeds will arrive by airmail.

Regards,
--
Martin Brown