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Couch Grass what should I cover it with?
On 13/11/2014 09:46, Martin wrote:
On Wed, 12 Nov 2014 18:51:38 -0000, "Bob Hobden" wrote: "Charlie Pridham" wrote "Broadback" wrote , SecondFromLeft wrote: I have recently taken on a large allotment which has a severe case of couch grass invasion. Could someone please tell me the best thing to cover the area with whilst I am working on other parts of the allotment. If I can help it I do not want to use any weed killers. I have read covering over is one of the better solutions. My two thoughts of covers are a think black plastic polythene sheet Something like : ('HEAVY DUTY BLACK POLYTHENE PLASTIC SHEETING 4M WIDE DPM ROLLS 300MU 1200 GAUGE | eBay' (http://tinyurl.com/nr4csbh)) With option two being heavy duty garden control fabric. Something like : ('Kenley Garden Landscape Weed Control Fabric Ground Cover - Heavy Duty 100GSM | eBay' (http://tinyurl.com/lewfp78)) Does anyone have any preference over these two options or am I missing something better on the market. Depends on you budget. The cheapest option is to go to a carpet retailer and ask them for a bit of rubbish carpet, then place that over. The trouble with the black polythene, especially the thin variety is that winds will soon wreck it. Carpet is also better as it allows water through In my experience seen on another allotment site it also lets the Couch Grass through then you have old carpet stuck to the ground with couch and virtually impossible to remove! How long does couch have to be covered to kill it, one whole season or two? Then there is the problem of what chemicals etc are on the old carpet, no way of telling, and do you want them in your soil if you are so nervous about such things. Why not use Glyphosate, IME it is the only sure way to rid your plot of couch grass which is even worse than bindweed for coming up again from any small bit of root left in the soil. One or maybe two applications should kill it completely and you can then dig in the dead weed and know you have a clean plot. Then you can use your whole plot next season and only have to concern yourself about it coming back from the surrounding area. A quick squirt of Glyphosate around the edge once a year will see to that too. Most of us on our site use it to keep our rabbit fences clear of weeds so we can see where the little blighters are trying to dig in. You can buy a membrane that is opaque, but water permeable. Using this it takes at least a year to kill the couch grass under the cover. You need to kill the couch grass on a strip of land along the edge of the cover first otherwise the couch grass under the edge of the membrane grows outwards towards the light. Use glyphosate while you can, before it is banned. From 1 January 2015 in the Netherlands there will be a ban on the use of glyphosate, except for agriculture. In particular local authorities and private individuals are banned from buying and using it. It was found that glyphosate applied to roads and pavements by local authorities was sometimes being washed down the drains by rain before it had time to break down. Even if that is true the LD50 for glyphosate is about the same as that for the caffeine in coffee. The surfactants (aka washing up liquid like compounds) added to the commercial formulations are far nastier. This is an example of the irrational fear of chemicals resulting in a stupid decision when all that is needed is some training of the operatives not to spray when rain is expected and to be selective. -- Regards, Martin Brown |
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