I really enjoy your honesty in these videos! A lot of gardening content portrays gardening in such a rosy light. It can really be discouraging when reality hits and it isn't as easy as in the videos 😅
Mares tail will grow through anything that you put down, its roots go down several metres and will spread accross your site. Rotavating ground with Mares tail, bindweed or couch grass is a great way of propagating it. You get hundreds of new plants. Mares tail grows back very quickly sadly. Cardboard rots in a couple of months and the roots grow through it. I used cardboard on only a few beds when I went no dig. Turning the soil will bring new seeds to the surface. First year you have to weed a lot. It gets less in later years. I have Mares tail and my plot and it was 75% covered in bindweed and also had lots of couch grass. I double dug my plot the first year to remove as much bindweed and couch grass as possible. Then covered in 15cm of rotted horse manure from my local stables (I dug it out for free). The first year I weeded bindweed out daily. The bindweed was awful and there was some to pull each day. However, it was easy to push your hand into the compost and pull out 10 cm of the root,. No dig makes for quick and easy weeding as the surface is always friable. Second year was much easier and the third year it gave up halfway through the summer. Couch grass was gone in the first year. What I have noticed however is that because I am not digging the ground, I am not propagating new plants of Mares tail from root cuttings. The Mares tail has got weaker and also much less of it. I know have very little Marestail. I will always have it because it spreads via its roots from other plots. It has taken about 5 or 6 years to get to this state. My second plot I did not dig at all, it is weedier but getting less so. The Marestail is also getting much less and weaker and also takes longer to regrow. It was awful initially I burnt many 50 gallon drums full of the stuff in the first year. . I put this down to no dig as I am not creating new root cuttings and I can remove more rotts quickly. I use about 2 to 5 cm of horse manure each year now on my beds. I googled for local stables and phoned them to check that they do not use weedkiller on their fields and it was free to dig out.
As a new allotment plot holder, I feel you with the weeds. I'm finding it overwhelming but videos like this help as I can see I'm not the only one. Keep going with the good work, I'm loving you videos as they're so real.
I am in the exact same position. Just took over an allotment recently and got to the point where I was thinking am I doing something wrong. Constantly spending my time clearing weeds lol
It’s overwhelming for sure! I’m glad it’s helped. Once I started it wasn’t so bad. Although I’m currently avoiding going down there because I know it needs to be done again 😅 Good luck with it and keep going down there and doing it for short bursts
I think it’s necessary in many cases. Perhaps people can overdo it but yeah I think it’s become a bit of a fad to suggest it’s as harmful as many make out. Especially on such a small scale like this
I did the same thing on my plot just couldn’t do no dig on a big scale and just wanted to get things in the ground, if it’s good soil why not. Everything is coming on nicely 👍
so yeah, don't worry about the cardboard causing it to be containerised. We laid cardboard the first week of Feb and put in compost etc to find the mares tail popping through the cardboard by May. One thing is pulling mares tail doesnt kill it. like a succulent it'll just re root from where you left it. sorry. same for kooch grass and bindweed roots. Luckily I can bag and bin them but even drowing them for 2 months didn't work. keep up the good work. and keep weeding
Yeah I’d have been amazed if pulling it a few times killed it 😂 I’ll keep getting out when I can. When the potatoes and sun holes are harvested I’ll get out as much as I possibly can and hopefully start seeing a difference. Thanks for the encouragement and good luck with your mates tail too 💪🏼
That's the best thing you can do with these perennial weeds, keep pulling them out and eventually it weakens the roots and it eventually dies off. Breaking more ground will make it easier for you next year and every year after even if it doesn't get planted this year. New ground is hard work between weeding and getting it turned over but one day you will turn round and find it's gotten easy and all the work was well worth it
Weeds are indicated of of what your soil needs to improve, heres this for horsetail Horsetail (Equisetum) can indicate that soil is light, sandy, and slightly acidic. It can also indicate poorly drained, low pH soils. Horsetail is a common garden weed that grows in damp soil. It can absorb minerals better than most other plants, so agronomists use it to check for mercury and other pollutants in the soil. Horsetail can also accumulate gold, cadmium, copper, lead, and zinc in its tissues
I’m so with you here, I can’t afford all the compost and I can’t source wood chip so I’m forced to dig, plus I can get the awful weeds out at the same time. The “no dig” hasn’t stopped my weeds so I’ve given up! Utterly pointless! This year is testing me to the limit I swear to god! Waiting for my strimmer to arrive !
I feel you! It’s pretty overwhelming fitting it in around normal life. That and the slugs that seem to eat every plant except the weeds 😂 I don’t see the point in it either. Certainly not until the weeds are under better control and the soil isn’t compacted
In my experience no-dig works well in small quantities after the soil has been really well weeded and had a season or two for most of the seedbank near the top to germinate. Otherwise you're just feeding the existing weeds which germinate with lovely quality soil. I've done years of light till and finally started a bit of no-diggery with well rotted horse manure mulching (much cheaper than any compost). This has been really good for weed suppression, but I don't think it would have done much in year 1 or 2 of allotment. I think you've got the right idea. Get your plants in and just hoe around them regularly.
I can see that too. Especially perennial weeds that will have no problem overcoming a bit of cardboard and compost. I think it’s quite easy to get deliveries of horse manure here too. Like you said it’s miles cheaper and easily available. I’m tempted to use some to make a hotbed for next winter too 🤩
I used to spend so much time weeding like that. Now I mulch with hay, generally in autumn, might top up a bit in spring. Probably brings weed seeds in, but it keeps most of weed seeds from germinating, and I hardly spend anytime weeding at all. I never give time to weeding, it's just a few things to pull when I'm checking plants. Plastic leads to more trouble than it's worth. Hay breaks down and really improves soil, lovely dark rich soil now..... which means less weeds (don't know why better soil grows less weeds, it's counter intuitive). Slugs bad with hay, but no system is perfect. Stick with it, it gets way easier. (I would say keep it small to start... you'll get plenty of food from a small area... but you've already decided that's not for you!)
I’ll definitely mulch once I’ve got some more of the perennial weed roots out and reduce the seed bank. I’ve never had to weed like this either tbf. It’s just a challenging site. I agree on both points. Better managed small area would probably yield more and plastic has its own issues. Where do you get the hay from? We couldn’t have any MORE slugs here anyway so I can’t imagine that would be a problem 🤣
You are entirely correct that rotovating is absolutely okay! Hopefully all the pernicious weed root bits from the process will be easy to pull out when they grow. Farmers in North America are moving towards regenerative agriculture. What a great idea those slabs are!! My Mom used to plant her rows farther apart so that she could just run the roto between the rows and then hand weed just between the plants.
That’s my thinking - once the soil is a bit looser it will be easier to get in with a fork. That’s a good idea too. Planning the beds with further mechanical assistance in mind 🤩
I had a huge problem with mares tail. I just kept pulling them up, and I now have very few. Mares tail isn't too bad...bind weed on the other hand!😂🤬 You are doing fine. I'd just keep going and weeding. Much better to grow something in a weedy garden than nothing at all. That's an awesome space you have there.😊 You are fit and strong you will do fine. It's taken me 4 yrs and a whole heap of pain and mistakes to get mine in order. I'm old though!😊😂
You do you, whatever gardening style works for you. This is the 4th summer we have been in this yard. I'm lazy but I also wanted to start gardening, so the first year I dug up a few small beds, each winter I add 1 or 2 more beds using cardboard, grass clippings and garden waste etc. I got a truckload of municipal compost the 1st year (free on Earth Day here in Portland, OR.) and make my own compost using kitchen and yard waste and the bedding from my chickens. Nothing beats that first pea or tomato or ear of corn from your own garden.
100% with you on that! Whatever fits your climate, availability of resources and personal preference. You got a free truckload of compost?! That’s amazing! True, nothing beats the first bite. It’s such a wonderful feeling. Thank you for the thoughtful comment 🙏😊
love your sulk 😂😂😂😂 brilliant that you captured it so well we all get days like that. well expressed . on the weeds, i mulch with cardboard and cover with minimal mulch then i make holes plant with compost added into the hole it means the weed areas are less and less but mares tail is a beast i’m grateful i don’t have- we just struggle with bind weed
Weeds !! They are growing fine but plants that’s a dif question. The weather in Manchester has been utter pants I’m in a bit if o panic over everything not growing or not growing as it should
I'm glad I'm not the only one who despises horsetail because of its underground runners which can be very deep. What's worked for me was seeing the nuisance as a whole, facing the reality of what needed to be done, then breaking it down into manageable tasks of two hours each. After three years it's far easier and now one of those 'going with the flow' maintenance tasks where my basic routine is to catch it early in May, then keeping on top of it every month with other gardening tasks.
great videos, i only just joined you a few nights ago and i,m caught up. the way i deal with mares tail is the no plant method 😆my allotment is decimated by the stuff, and cooch grass. its currently about 20" high and for the 2nd year running i,ve toally sacked it off. but i do have plans for a winter fire as my neighbours plot has kindly spread around 400 unwanted raspberry plants to my plot, which i,m pretty cheesed about. but a big fire and some plastic sheeting..hopefully i,ll be good to go next spring.til then its just my fruit trees and my garden plot and greenhouse. lots of cucumber to pot on this weekend. started to think like you about a pollytunnel. seems like the way forward.
Love these videos and as somebody that got into horticulture about 7 years ago it's great to see an actual real gardening channel. As you've said regardless of method the first year sucks. No dig you wait a year, digging you disturb the seedbank, potentially multiply perennials. But it's not like there's a better option. You've got to start somewhere and putting plants in the ground and digging it WILL be better overall for the ground and faster. I don't think it's making the same mistake, it's just a brute force method. I've never dealt with equisetum luckily but I had been wondering what fresh hell it will be like once it has warmed up.
I'm in year one of a no-dig plot and mine looks exactly like yours - I weed and a week later couch, bindweed, mare#s tail and cow parsley are everywhere again. No-dig is good against annual weeds but those perennials have more reserves to draw from
Mare's tail is a nightmare, isn't it? Their roots, I believe, can survive in the ground for 50 years! So it's futile trying to totally eliminate it - just keep on pulling whenever you spot it! Keep at it, you have made such a difference already. It will get easier once you given it all the onceover!
Am a semi organic grower, use roundup on my boundary, which is our worst paddock on the farm, we can't plough it up, because it is a horrible shape and it has lots of twitch, creeping thistle and docks.
It’s so handy to have a rotavator, you did that super fast..I actually love watching you struggle with weeds, it’s realistic. You are keeping it real 😂
It definitely feels real 😅 the first bit was 5x harder with the rotavator. It was just skipping over it until I broke it up a bit with the shovel. Are you growing that cool corn variety again this year?
@@tecmow4399 I am indeed growing that cool corn.. however I’ve been getting a few people saying it would have been cross pollinated by next doors corn and it won’t grow like last year’s crop. So it would be interesting to see if this is true.. I’ll be sad if it’s not the same.
in a similar spot to you mate, no mares tail, but bitter cress, bindweed and couch grass. no dig is great if you have three hundred quid to chuck into the ground, I can only afford one bed lol
And you’d have spent three hundred quid but would still have tons of weeds until you physically remove some (by digging!) Bind weed and couch grass are such a nuisance too. Good luck with it!
One big benefit if no dig is it's super quick to set up. My soil is way too compacted to grow good vegetables, and I didn't have time to dig enough beds to grow what I wanted this year, so it was way quicker to throw a load of compost down and get growing. This gives me time to start digging elsewhere in the garden, and in the next year or two I'll come back to the no dig beds and give them a thorough double digging. If you have a cheap source of compost or can afford the initial investment, no dig is an effective tool on a grower's belt.
100% with you on that. I’ve used it to prepare areas in my own garden before and it’s definitely a great tool. And where it’s applicable it’s a lot less effort
For me a lot of the claims made about no dig fall in the same place homeopathy. As for the mares tail a lot of people report vinegar really nailing it. I've also seen WD40 but not sure I'd want to spray that all over my plot.
Real footage. Love it. Ps I remove every last frond of mares tail into its own bucket & put it in the bin. I do not compost. The battle is real, I feel your pain.
You are proceding with the goal that those weeds will eventually go. Good plan. Good soil is good soil. I have a couple of seed packets to sow in some community planters. And that will be it. I am going to pull up some thorns, locally which are proliferating around an untended garden. Intended until last weekend when they were mown down. Not my property, but i could see it every day, if I wished.
I had no idea how good your youtube channel was. Shafkat mentioned it to me but your videos randomly popped up in my reccomended last week and have watched 80 percent of them. I really love the style/format of your videos. Extremely informative, honest and very enjoyable. I'm kind of upset I didn't discover you later as I like to binge watch previous content hours and days at a time 😂😂. The in depth videos are excellent and my brain gets to immerse itself in a deep blanket of thought for certain topics you covered eg the synopsis on the guardians peice and biodiversity, which i haven'teven considered in the last 2 years or so since i started(not to the scale u mentioned anyway). Glad and privalaged to be a subscriber. Your channel is up there with the best of the gardeners channels on UA-cam and you will easily pass a million. All the best dont ever stop the content unless you really have to 👍💪. From H (Shafkats neighbour)
That’s very kind, thank you. I’m so glad I gave you a few more avenues to dive into a few rabbit holes. Good to see you yesterday and see you again down there
I took on a plot many years ago that was riddled with Mare's tail. Every week, religiously, I went over it with a weed wand, as the flame could get through the silicone coating. It took about three months of consistent weed wanding, but it eventually gave up the ghost. I think I also read that using manure on the beds makes it harder for the Mare's tail to survive, but don't hold me to that. I regularly manure all areas, apart from root beds , of course, and the Mare's tail was defeated, so maybe a combination of the two works. May be worth looking into that, to see if there's any science behind it, but the allotment has been Mare's tail free for a number of years. Good luck 🍀
No problem. I also covered the beds each year with plastic, after applying the manure and left it on over winter. I think maybe the exclusion of light from the manure and plastic also helped, along with the zapping when actively growing. You'll get there. It's a marathon, not a sprint 👍
It’s really impressive how tidy it looks, taking into consideration the amount of trash thar you plucked out of the floor. It just goes to show that the right community of people, with access, could do a lot to transform spaces that policymakers would potentially deem unusable. Or only worthy to be developed by private investors. Also that cut off T-shirt made promises of a Janet Jackson moment that it didn’t deliver on. 👏🏾do 👏🏾better👏🏾
😂 I’m sorry for not delivering a Janet Jackson moment. Thanks for the encouragement! I agree - with machinery, knowledge and man power local authorities could use it would be possible on a far larger scale
I am sorry, taking over a new plot is hard grind. Clear a small plot, and work out from there. There is no quick solution and just keep weeding and weeding, it will come right in the end. I had mares tail in my garden and I forked it out every time I saw it and eventually it gave up the ghost. My daughter has a garden which is covered in bindweed and ground elder. She just keeps clearing and clearing and is slowly making inroads into it all. Slowly slowly catchee monkey. Have patience, good luck.
Mares tail likes low pH wet soil, if you can improve drainage and raise the pH it will be heading in the right direction, mite be worth liming as getting the Ca:mg ratio higher with Ca will improve drainage and raise pH, tight soil also indicates a high Mg/low Ca soil. Mite want to avoid rotavating mares tail, every 1" bit of chopped up root will form a new plant :/ If you can take a strimmer or sythe to all those nettles/greenery around you and pile it all up, before it goes to seed, you'd have a ton of compost to make some no dig beds next yr/in future.
I hadn’t actually thought of pH being a factor for mares tail but that would make sense. Most of my area has quite acidic soil. Everyone’s gardens have rhododendrons and camellias in the ground. Yeah I know what you mean about the rotavator. It’s just that ground was so compacted I had to do something. It was just bouncing over it at first. Once it comes back I’ll start removing it by hand but the ground was so hard it would have bent the fork 😅
@@tecmow4399 It's a difficult choice to invest heaily in soil you don't own, I guess it depends how long you'll be working it to spread the overall costs, you can get limestone grit 0-6mm from agrigate suppliers in ton bags relatively cheaply, it's not as effective as Ag/garden lime in the short term and it needs biology to make it accessible to plants so chem ferts would also be working against you in that case, but it'd help floculate the soil and improve drainage over the longer term, plus it'd help skew conditions away from mares tails desired conditons.
Possibly a stupid question and I need to catch up on your previous videos but as a quick fix couldn't you just buy a pile of pallet collars and stick a load of raised beds on top of the existing patch? I did the same in our garden, which is dandelion heaven, didn't even lay cardboard down, just dumped the soil straight in and no weed issues two years in...
do a test. choose a small patch for no dig, carry on as normal everywhere else, see what happens. Not coming at you as a voice of experience, but would be cool to see the results.
I wouldn’t mind if you came at me tbh. I started it 😂. Yes I might actually. I do have a bag of homemade compost I could use to try it out. I’ve used the method on some landscaping jobs and a few areas of my garden. It’s definitely a useful tool to have in a gardeners chest. Have you tried it?
@@tecmow4399 I've been doing no dig for the first time this year. The cardboard breaks down really quickly, so plants are rooting through it. If you had a test try, it would be interesting to see how the mare's tail reacts - my problem is creeping buttercup which is popping through here and there, but getting grabbed immediately. I used mushroom compost for my no dig - and not a single slug or snail will go onto it, so another bonus.
New subscriber from the states...you need to get yourself a stirrup hoe to cut the weeds off. Had problems with Canadian thistle which sends out runners as well. The more you pull them the more they sprout up along the runners. Keep cutting them off and they eventually give up.
I do have one but I prefer a standard Dutch hoe as a personal preference. It’s also much more manageable to hoe off large areas so there’s that too! Thanks for the tips 🙏
Don't you have slugs? Mine are terrible and wish I had spares because they have eaten everything. I would hate horsetail. As a child it was my job to dig it out. No dig would be frustrating with horsetail as it is fairly indestructible apart from removal and lots of time.
Where is your base? Shed? Tree with seat? Kettle or stove? Flower bed or other interest like pond? You need to break up the monotony somehow then your mood might improve. Nettles can be delicious. No sweat with a patch of those. I think it is all perspective. I buy from farmers and just allotment as a hobby and to play with ponds and wildlife.
It’s tough there’s the way you are doing it which just means pulling up weeds most of your time but getting some crops or you end up doing what I did and weed an area thoroughly and have very little cropping! It did pay off eventually for me and your way will also achieve the exact same thing and if it keeps you motivated it’s the right way for you. Would a cover crop help at all or will they just feed the weeds?
Any ground cover will make mares tail worse as the trapped moisture feeds underground growth. Just keep hoeing to exhaust underground storage nodes. I found a wiggle hoe best.
uncovered soil is not natural, nature will come in to fill it. I like to use a layer of straw to mulch & insulate the soil. it stops compaction and increases worm activity, so the soil has better structure and weeds come out with light pulling
For that plot I would have sacrificed year one. Your biggest obstacle going forward is not having enough compost so year one you could have focused on growing greens and browns in quantity to make loads of compost for year two. You can then do no dig. Trying to grow veg for edible harvest is futile for year one in your circumstances. Complete and utter waste of time in my opinion.
Fair enough and you may end up being right. But I’d have no motivation to just grown plants with a view to compost them. And I think no dig is futile on this site tbh. Way too much mares tail.
@@tecmow4399 I’m the opposite, I love growing vegetation for composting. Composting and breeding worms is probably my favourite gardening activity followed by sowing seeds and nurturing seedlings. The first step of successful gardening starts with making compost though, it makes a huge difference being able to generate a surplus of home made compost and worms. You don’t have to do no dig, but you still need compost to go forward. Watching your videos, you have put in a lot of hard labour hours. I hope this project works out for you, if not, go down the pub and order a pint.
I don’t understand the no-dig fad, aside from the fact that it’s a way to get people to spend a lot of money getting started so certain interests benefit. I always plant in ground and the plants are happy. Farmers planted in ground for hundreds upon hundreds of years (thousands even) and everything was fine. It’s Big Ag aggressively destroying soil that’s the problem, not small scale gardeners. Don’t feel ashamed that you didn’t do no-dig. There’s nothing wrong with planting in ground.
I agree. I want to use the soil I have. True, it’s not small scale gardening forking over a bit of soil that’s contributing to any ill effects on land use. I’m certainly not ashamed but there is a huge popularity of no dig online. For me it’s a useful tool when you’re short of time, not physically able to dig too much and if your site has been reasonably well weeded. I’m probably not experienced enough to give a comprehensive guide to it but I know enough to think I’d rather get roots into the native soil sooner rather than later
I've got to say though, look at that black earth! My area has so much clay. And don't make excuses for digging in the long run you'll keep on building that awesome soil. Anything goes, right.. All roads lead to Rome. I've got to agree with you, having a large area like that and setting everything up you should be allowed to experiment and have some easy ways out to keep motivated. You're not failing on a bigger scale, this is BIG SCALE LEARNING, TOM! Surely it's not so bad that it isn't good for something But having those paths overgrown with weeds will probably make it worse, especially with that couch-grass and creeping-buttercup, my very own nightmare! Awesome that there's so many slabs to use! I would gumtree for carboard, surely someone has installed a new IKEA kitchen somewhere. 🤠 Also, look at that! Things are growing well in though! Still haven't mulched the potatoes I see, guilty of postponing the same thing. At least now they're sprouting, such slow growers this spring. I think you're allowed to get some onions sets now 🤣 Perhaps you could cheat in laying down cardboard between the potatoes, to weaken the grass and hinder the weeds a bit? Maybe you could make a pumpkin and summer squash patch, the sprawl our so magically. My mother suddenly got terminally ill 3 weeks ago and passed just two days ago, so my garden has been neglected and I truly need to get digging for both my mental and physical health. I'm a bit envious of your progress.. My gardening might suffer through this whole time of mourning and all the work that remains with emptying my mothers house... So thank your popping by and motivating me. I guess I should get my french rustic pumpkins and russian kale going before it's all but too late.
I’m so sorry to hear that about your mum 🫂 That’s a really tough one. If you manage to get out and do anything among all that then I’m sure it will be helpful to you. Having said that, go easy on yourself! Sending big hugs
@@tecmow4399 Thank you.. I'm definitely realising my limitations.. 🥺 Luckily the sky has been watering my garden the last couple of days.. The shock and adrenalin is starting to settle, and projects can wait for now.. 😩 Meanwhile I'm glad to have some Vlogs to keep me inspired ✌
I really enjoy your honesty in these videos! A lot of gardening content portrays gardening in such a rosy light. It can really be discouraging when reality hits and it isn't as easy as in the videos 😅
Mares tail will grow through anything that you put down, its roots go down several metres and will spread accross your site. Rotavating ground with Mares tail, bindweed or couch grass is a great way of propagating it. You get hundreds of new plants.
Mares tail grows back very quickly sadly.
Cardboard rots in a couple of months and the roots grow through it. I used cardboard on only a few beds when I went no dig.
Turning the soil will bring new seeds to the surface.
First year you have to weed a lot. It gets less in later years.
I have Mares tail and my plot and it was 75% covered in bindweed and also had lots of couch grass. I double dug my plot the first year to remove as much bindweed and couch grass as possible. Then covered in 15cm of rotted horse manure from my local stables (I dug it out for free). The first year I weeded bindweed out daily. The bindweed was awful and there was some to pull each day. However, it was easy to push your hand into the compost and pull out 10 cm of the root,. No dig makes for quick and easy weeding as the surface is always friable. Second year was much easier and the third year it gave up halfway through the summer. Couch grass was gone in the first year.
What I have noticed however is that because I am not digging the ground, I am not propagating new plants of Mares tail from root cuttings. The Mares tail has got weaker and also much less of it. I know have very little Marestail. I will always have it because it spreads via its roots from other plots. It has taken about 5 or 6 years to get to this state.
My second plot I did not dig at all, it is weedier but getting less so. The Marestail is also getting much less and weaker and also takes longer to regrow. It was awful initially I burnt many 50 gallon drums full of the stuff in the first year. . I put this down to no dig as I am not creating new root cuttings and I can remove more rotts quickly.
I use about 2 to 5 cm of horse manure each year now on my beds. I googled for local stables and phoned them to check that they do not use weedkiller on their fields and it was free to dig out.
Marestail has a 3' tap root. Oh, the joys of allotment gardening.
Great wee videos, it’s been superb to follow the progress and quite inspiring.
Thank you so much! 🙏❤️
As a new allotment plot holder, I feel you with the weeds. I'm finding it overwhelming but videos like this help as I can see I'm not the only one. Keep going with the good work, I'm loving you videos as they're so real.
I am in the exact same position.
Just took over an allotment recently and got to the point where I was thinking am I doing something wrong.
Constantly spending my time clearing weeds lol
It’s overwhelming for sure! I’m glad it’s helped. Once I started it wasn’t so bad. Although I’m currently avoiding going down there because I know it needs to be done again 😅
Good luck with it and keep going down there and doing it for short bursts
Good to see someone defend digging the soil for a change. It’s been the practice for thousands of years.
I think it’s necessary in many cases. Perhaps people can overdo it but yeah I think it’s become a bit of a fad to suggest it’s as harmful as many make out. Especially on such a small scale like this
Come on Tom, keep us engaged! Give us at least a short or a poll 😂😊
On it, I promise 😅
c,mon fella , hows the allotment going ? enjoying te sunshine ....at last !!!!!!
Came here to say the same!
Ok ok, give me 5 minutes
@@tecmow4399 good man, great to see you back.
I did the same thing on my plot just couldn’t do no dig on a big scale and just wanted to get things in the ground, if it’s good soil why not. Everything is coming on nicely 👍
so yeah, don't worry about the cardboard causing it to be containerised. We laid cardboard the first week of Feb and put in compost etc to find the mares tail popping through the cardboard by May. One thing is pulling mares tail doesnt kill it. like a succulent it'll just re root from where you left it. sorry. same for kooch grass and bindweed roots. Luckily I can bag and bin them but even drowing them for 2 months didn't work. keep up the good work. and keep weeding
Yeah I’d have been amazed if pulling it a few times killed it 😂
I’ll keep getting out when I can. When the potatoes and sun holes are harvested I’ll get out as much as I possibly can and hopefully start seeing a difference. Thanks for the encouragement and good luck with your mates tail too 💪🏼
That's the best thing you can do with these perennial weeds, keep pulling them out and eventually it weakens the roots and it eventually dies off. Breaking more ground will make it easier for you next year and every year after even if it doesn't get planted this year. New ground is hard work between weeding and getting it turned over but one day you will turn round and find it's gotten easy and all the work was well worth it
Weeds are indicated of of what your soil needs to improve, heres this for horsetail Horsetail (Equisetum) can indicate that soil is light, sandy, and slightly acidic. It can also indicate poorly drained, low pH soils.
Horsetail is a common garden weed that grows in damp soil. It can absorb minerals better than most other plants, so agronomists use it to check for mercury and other pollutants in the soil. Horsetail can also accumulate gold, cadmium, copper, lead, and zinc in its tissues
I’m so with you here, I can’t afford all the compost and I can’t source wood chip so I’m forced to dig, plus I can get the awful weeds out at the same time. The “no dig” hasn’t stopped my weeds so I’ve given up! Utterly pointless! This year is testing me to the limit I swear to god! Waiting for my strimmer to arrive !
I feel you! It’s pretty overwhelming fitting it in around normal life. That and the slugs that seem to eat every plant except the weeds 😂
I don’t see the point in it either. Certainly not until the weeds are under better control and the soil isn’t compacted
In my experience no-dig works well in small quantities after the soil has been really well weeded and had a season or two for most of the seedbank near the top to germinate. Otherwise you're just feeding the existing weeds which germinate with lovely quality soil. I've done years of light till and finally started a bit of no-diggery with well rotted horse manure mulching (much cheaper than any compost). This has been really good for weed suppression, but I don't think it would have done much in year 1 or 2 of allotment.
I think you've got the right idea. Get your plants in and just hoe around them regularly.
I can see that too. Especially perennial weeds that will have no problem overcoming a bit of cardboard and compost.
I think it’s quite easy to get deliveries of horse manure here too. Like you said it’s miles cheaper and easily available. I’m tempted to use some to make a hotbed for next winter too 🤩
I used to spend so much time weeding like that. Now I mulch with hay, generally in autumn, might top up a bit in spring. Probably brings weed seeds in, but it keeps most of weed seeds from germinating, and I hardly spend anytime weeding at all. I never give time to weeding, it's just a few things to pull when I'm checking plants. Plastic leads to more trouble than it's worth. Hay breaks down and really improves soil, lovely dark rich soil now..... which means less weeds (don't know why better soil grows less weeds, it's counter intuitive). Slugs bad with hay, but no system is perfect. Stick with it, it gets way easier. (I would say keep it small to start... you'll get plenty of food from a small area... but you've already decided that's not for you!)
I’ll definitely mulch once I’ve got some more of the perennial weed roots out and reduce the seed bank.
I’ve never had to weed like this either tbf. It’s just a challenging site. I agree on both points. Better managed small area would probably yield more and plastic has its own issues. Where do you get the hay from? We couldn’t have any MORE slugs here anyway so I can’t imagine that would be a problem 🤣
You are entirely correct that rotovating is absolutely okay! Hopefully all the pernicious weed root bits from the process will be easy to pull out when they grow. Farmers in North America are moving towards regenerative agriculture. What a great idea those slabs are!! My Mom used to plant her rows farther apart so that she could just run the roto between the rows and then hand weed just between the plants.
That’s my thinking - once the soil is a bit looser it will be easier to get in with a fork.
That’s a good idea too. Planning the beds with further mechanical assistance in mind 🤩
I had a huge problem with mares tail. I just kept pulling them up, and I now have very few. Mares tail isn't too bad...bind weed on the other hand!😂🤬 You are doing fine. I'd just keep going and weeding. Much better to grow something in a weedy garden than nothing at all. That's an awesome space you have there.😊 You are fit and strong you will do fine. It's taken me 4 yrs and a whole heap of pain and mistakes to get mine in order. I'm old though!😊😂
Bindweed having a particularly vintage year where we are...
@@InspirationSessions Yes...jurassic!
You do you, whatever gardening style works for you. This is the 4th summer we have been in this yard. I'm lazy but I also wanted to start gardening, so the first year I dug up a few small beds, each winter I add 1 or 2 more beds using cardboard, grass clippings and garden waste etc. I got a truckload of municipal compost the 1st year (free on Earth Day here in Portland, OR.) and make my own compost using kitchen and yard waste and the bedding from my chickens. Nothing beats that first pea or tomato or ear of corn from your own garden.
100% with you on that! Whatever fits your climate, availability of resources and personal preference. You got a free truckload of compost?! That’s amazing!
True, nothing beats the first bite. It’s such a wonderful feeling.
Thank you for the thoughtful comment 🙏😊
Hey, I'm from Portland, too!
love your sulk 😂😂😂😂 brilliant that you captured it so well we all get days like that. well expressed . on the weeds, i mulch with cardboard and cover with minimal mulch then i make holes plant with compost added into the hole it means the weed areas are less and less but mares tail is a beast i’m grateful i don’t have- we just struggle with bind weed
I may start doing that in a few areas to try to slow them down a bit. Yeah I like a good silk tbh 😂 Why avoid whinging when you’re peed off?!
13:01 -- we completely understand! 😅
Don't give up! :). As others have said, keep at it and with every weed pulled, the situation will get better.
I’m still enjoying it and making incremental progress. Don’t worry I won’t give up if I can help it 🫡
@@tecmow4399 good. I enjoy your videos
came for the keepin' it real garden progress, stayed for the gun show ;)
😂 gun-na hold you to that
Weeds !! They are growing fine but plants that’s a dif question. The weather in Manchester has been utter pants I’m in a bit if o panic over everything not growing or not growing as it should
I'm glad I'm not the only one who despises horsetail because of its underground runners which can be very deep. What's worked for me was seeing the nuisance as a whole, facing the reality of what needed to be done, then breaking it down into manageable tasks of two hours each. After three years it's far easier and now one of those 'going with the flow' maintenance tasks where my basic routine is to catch it early in May, then keeping on top of it every month with other gardening tasks.
great videos, i only just joined you a few nights ago and i,m caught up. the way i deal with mares tail is the no plant method 😆my allotment is decimated by the stuff, and cooch grass. its currently about 20" high and for the 2nd year running i,ve toally sacked it off. but i do have plans for a winter fire as my neighbours plot has kindly spread around 400 unwanted raspberry plants to my plot, which i,m pretty cheesed about. but a big fire and some plastic sheeting..hopefully i,ll be good to go next spring.til then its just my fruit trees and my garden plot and greenhouse. lots of cucumber to pot on this weekend. started to think like you about a pollytunnel. seems like the way forward.
Love these videos and as somebody that got into horticulture about 7 years ago it's great to see an actual real gardening channel.
As you've said regardless of method the first year sucks. No dig you wait a year, digging you disturb the seedbank, potentially multiply perennials. But it's not like there's a better option. You've got to start somewhere and putting plants in the ground and digging it WILL be better overall for the ground and faster. I don't think it's making the same mistake, it's just a brute force method.
I've never dealt with equisetum luckily but I had been wondering what fresh hell it will be like once it has warmed up.
I have JUST NOW read that marigolds will prevent mare's tail from growing. I am astonished, and i am off to look it up!
The slugs ate all my marigold seedlings as soon as I planted them out 😂. It sounds like it can’t be true but I’ll wait to hear back
I'm in year one of a no-dig plot and mine looks exactly like yours - I weed and a week later couch, bindweed, mare#s tail and cow parsley are everywhere again. No-dig is good against annual weeds but those perennials have more reserves to draw from
Mare's tail is a nightmare, isn't it? Their roots, I believe, can survive in the ground for 50 years! So it's futile trying to totally eliminate it - just keep on pulling whenever you spot it! Keep at it, you have made such a difference already. It will get easier once you given it all the onceover!
I’ve only been doing it for a few months but yeah it’s a tough SOB!
I’ll keep chipping away and hopefully see it tire out a bit
Am a semi organic grower, use roundup on my boundary, which is our worst paddock on the farm, we can't plough it up, because it is a horrible shape and it has lots of twitch, creeping thistle and docks.
It’s so handy to have a rotavator, you did that super fast..I actually love watching you struggle with weeds, it’s realistic. You are keeping it real 😂
It definitely feels real 😅 the first bit was 5x harder with the rotavator. It was just skipping over it until I broke it up a bit with the shovel. Are you growing that cool corn variety again this year?
@@tecmow4399 I am indeed growing that cool corn.. however I’ve been getting a few people saying it would have been cross pollinated by next doors corn and it won’t grow like last year’s crop. So it would be interesting to see if this is true.. I’ll be sad if it’s not the same.
in a similar spot to you mate, no mares tail, but bitter cress, bindweed and couch grass. no dig is great if you have three hundred quid to chuck into the ground, I can only afford one bed lol
And you’d have spent three hundred quid but would still have tons of weeds until you physically remove some (by digging!)
Bind weed and couch grass are such a nuisance too. Good luck with it!
@@tecmow4399 Nearly there now pal, bad weather has give me space for catch up. cheers all the best
One big benefit if no dig is it's super quick to set up. My soil is way too compacted to grow good vegetables, and I didn't have time to dig enough beds to grow what I wanted this year, so it was way quicker to throw a load of compost down and get growing.
This gives me time to start digging elsewhere in the garden, and in the next year or two I'll come back to the no dig beds and give them a thorough double digging.
If you have a cheap source of compost or can afford the initial investment, no dig is an effective tool on a grower's belt.
100% with you on that. I’ve used it to prepare areas in my own garden before and it’s definitely a great tool. And where it’s applicable it’s a lot less effort
For me a lot of the claims made about no dig fall in the same place homeopathy. As for the mares tail a lot of people report vinegar really nailing it. I've also seen WD40 but not sure I'd want to spray that all over my plot.
Real footage. Love it.
Ps I remove every last frond of mares tail into its own bucket & put it in the bin. I do not compost. The battle is real, I feel your pain.
I’ve just been piling it up to dry out in the sun a bit and then like you I’ll probably chuck it or destroy it somehow.
Thank you so much 🙏
You are proceding with the goal that those weeds will eventually go. Good plan. Good soil is good soil. I have a couple of seed packets to sow in some community planters. And that will be it. I am going to pull up some thorns, locally which are proliferating around an untended garden. Intended until last weekend when they were mown down. Not my property, but i could see it every day, if I wished.
It’s coming along but you’ve got a fight on your hands with that mare’s tail xx
Yeah it’s risen to the challenge quite effectively 😂
I had no idea how good your youtube channel was. Shafkat mentioned it to me but your videos randomly popped up in my reccomended last week and have watched 80 percent of them. I really love the style/format of your videos. Extremely informative, honest and very enjoyable. I'm kind of upset I didn't discover you later as I like to binge watch previous content hours and days at a time 😂😂. The in depth videos are excellent and my brain gets to immerse itself in a deep blanket of thought for certain topics you covered eg the synopsis on the guardians peice and biodiversity, which i haven'teven considered in the last 2 years or so since i started(not to the scale u mentioned anyway).
Glad and privalaged to be a subscriber. Your channel is up there with the best of the gardeners channels on UA-cam and you will easily pass a million. All the best dont ever stop the content unless you really have to 👍💪.
From H (Shafkats neighbour)
That’s very kind, thank you.
I’m so glad I gave you a few more avenues to dive into a few rabbit holes.
Good to see you yesterday and see you again down there
Always a pleasure 👍👍👍@@tecmow4399
I love your honesty. I following along and think you are doing a great job. I am battling with slugs and snails.
Thank you 🙏 Did they eat seedlings? The wet weather meant I had a lot of casualties from our slimy enemies too 😅
I took on a plot many years ago that was riddled with Mare's tail. Every week, religiously, I went over it with a weed wand, as the flame could get through the silicone coating. It took about three months of consistent weed wanding, but it eventually gave up the ghost. I think I also read that using manure on the beds makes it harder for the Mare's tail to survive, but don't hold me to that. I regularly manure all areas, apart from root beds , of course, and the Mare's tail was defeated, so maybe a combination of the two works. May be worth looking into that, to see if there's any science behind it, but the allotment has been Mare's tail free for a number of years. Good luck 🍀
I’ll definitely try using a flame then! It sounds like a manageable solution particularly in areas I haven’t planted. Thanks for the tip! 🙏
No problem. I also covered the beds each year with plastic, after applying the manure and left it on over winter. I think maybe the exclusion of light from the manure and plastic also helped, along with the zapping when actively growing. You'll get there. It's a marathon, not a sprint 👍
My allotment is a nightmare this year. Worst in 14 years. Not sure if I will carry on next year. Oh, mares tail is horrendous this year.😭
I’ve never seen so much of it in my life either! Has the main problem for you been mates tail too? Or slugs?
Both of those . Slugs eating everything 😭
It’s really impressive how tidy it looks, taking into consideration the amount of trash thar you plucked out of the floor. It just goes to show that the right community of people, with access, could do a lot to transform spaces that policymakers would potentially deem unusable. Or only worthy to be developed by private investors. Also that cut off T-shirt made promises of a Janet Jackson moment that it didn’t deliver on. 👏🏾do 👏🏾better👏🏾
😂 I’m sorry for not delivering a Janet Jackson moment.
Thanks for the encouragement! I agree - with machinery, knowledge and man power local authorities could use it would be possible on a far larger scale
In my experience you need to cover the cardboard with 4-6” of mulch for it to work well. It will stay wet and attract worms.
I might try that in some areas. There’s enough woodchip nearby and I have loads of cardboard
I am sorry, taking over a new plot is hard grind. Clear a small plot, and work out from there. There is no quick solution and just keep weeding and weeding, it will come right in the end. I had mares tail in my garden and I forked it out every time I saw it and eventually it gave up the ghost. My daughter has a garden which is covered in bindweed and ground elder. She just keeps clearing and clearing and is slowly making inroads into it all. Slowly slowly catchee monkey. Have patience, good luck.
Agreed. There really is no perfect wolf or weed control and the best is pulling.
I agree. I can tell you that the worst weed control is me sulking and avoiding the task 😅
Mares tail likes low pH wet soil, if you can improve drainage and raise the pH it will be heading in the right direction, mite be worth liming as getting the Ca:mg ratio higher with Ca will improve drainage and raise pH, tight soil also indicates a high Mg/low Ca soil. Mite want to avoid rotavating mares tail, every 1" bit of chopped up root will form a new plant :/ If you can take a strimmer or sythe to all those nettles/greenery around you and pile it all up, before it goes to seed, you'd have a ton of compost to make some no dig beds next yr/in future.
I hadn’t actually thought of pH being a factor for mares tail but that would make sense. Most of my area has quite acidic soil. Everyone’s gardens have rhododendrons and camellias in the ground.
Yeah I know what you mean about the rotavator. It’s just that ground was so compacted I had to do something. It was just bouncing over it at first. Once it comes back I’ll start removing it by hand but the ground was so hard it would have bent the fork 😅
@@tecmow4399 It's a difficult choice to invest heaily in soil you don't own, I guess it depends how long you'll be working it to spread the overall costs, you can get limestone grit 0-6mm from agrigate suppliers in ton bags relatively cheaply, it's not as effective as Ag/garden lime in the short term and it needs biology to make it accessible to plants so chem ferts would also be working against you in that case, but it'd help floculate the soil and improve drainage over the longer term, plus it'd help skew conditions away from mares tails desired conditons.
Possibly a stupid question and I need to catch up on your previous videos but as a quick fix couldn't you just buy a pile of pallet collars and stick a load of raised beds on top of the existing patch? I did the same in our garden, which is dandelion heaven, didn't even lay cardboard down, just dumped the soil straight in and no weed issues two years in...
It’s not a stupid question. But I prefer to grow in the native soil when possible. I haven’t established if it’s possible yet 😂
@@tecmow4399 in an ideal world, I’d 100% agree!
do a test. choose a small patch for no dig, carry on as normal everywhere else, see what happens. Not coming at you as a voice of experience, but would be cool to see the results.
I wouldn’t mind if you came at me tbh. I started it 😂. Yes I might actually. I do have a bag of homemade compost I could use to try it out.
I’ve used the method on some landscaping jobs and a few areas of my garden. It’s definitely a useful tool to have in a gardeners chest. Have you tried it?
@@tecmow4399 I've been doing no dig for the first time this year. The cardboard breaks down really quickly, so plants are rooting through it. If you had a test try, it would be interesting to see how the mare's tail reacts - my problem is creeping buttercup which is popping through here and there, but getting grabbed immediately. I used mushroom compost for my no dig - and not a single slug or snail will go onto it, so another bonus.
New subscriber from the states...you need to get yourself a stirrup hoe to cut the weeds off. Had problems with Canadian thistle which sends out runners as well. The more you pull them the more they sprout up along the runners. Keep cutting them off and they eventually give up.
I do have one but I prefer a standard Dutch hoe as a personal preference. It’s also much more manageable to hoe off large areas so there’s that too! Thanks for the tips 🙏
Don't you have slugs? Mine are terrible and wish I had spares because they have eaten everything. I would hate horsetail. As a child it was my job to dig it out. No dig would be frustrating with horsetail as it is fairly indestructible apart from removal and lots of time.
Where is your base? Shed? Tree with seat? Kettle or stove? Flower bed or other interest like pond? You need to break up the monotony somehow then your mood might improve. Nettles can be delicious. No sweat with a patch of those. I think it is all perspective. I buy from farmers and just allotment as a hobby and to play with ponds and wildlife.
Slugs completely destroyed by salad crops and beetroot as soon as it rained last week 😂
I’ve put up a shed this week and I’ve dug a small pond so far. One thing at a time though 😅
It’s tough there’s the way you are doing it which just means pulling up weeds most of your time but getting some crops or you end up doing what I did and weed an area thoroughly and have very little cropping! It did pay off eventually for me and your way will also achieve the exact same thing and if it keeps you motivated it’s the right way for you. Would a cover crop help at all or will they just feed the weeds?
Exactly - finding the way you’re personally motivated is the biggest thing for me. I’m glad you got on top of it eventually. That’s reassuring 😅
Any ground cover will make mares tail worse as the trapped moisture feeds underground growth. Just keep hoeing to exhaust underground storage nodes. I found a wiggle hoe best.
uncovered soil is not natural, nature will come in to fill it. I like to use a layer of straw to mulch & insulate the soil. it stops compaction and increases worm activity, so the soil has better structure and weeds come out with light pulling
For that plot I would have sacrificed year one. Your biggest obstacle going forward is not having enough compost so year one you could have focused on growing greens and browns in quantity to make loads of compost for year two. You can then do no dig. Trying to grow veg for edible harvest is futile for year one in your circumstances. Complete and utter waste of time in my opinion.
Fair enough and you may end up being right. But I’d have no motivation to just grown plants with a view to compost them. And I think no dig is futile on this site tbh. Way too much mares tail.
@@tecmow4399 I’m the opposite, I love growing vegetation for composting. Composting and breeding worms is probably my favourite gardening activity followed by sowing seeds and nurturing seedlings. The first step of successful gardening starts with making compost though, it makes a huge difference being able to generate a surplus of home made compost and worms. You don’t have to do no dig, but you still need compost to go forward.
Watching your videos, you have put in a lot of hard labour hours. I hope this project works out for you, if not, go down the pub and order a pint.
I don’t understand the no-dig fad, aside from the fact that it’s a way to get people to spend a lot of money getting started so certain interests benefit. I always plant in ground and the plants are happy. Farmers planted in ground for hundreds upon hundreds of years (thousands even) and everything was fine. It’s Big Ag aggressively destroying soil that’s the problem, not small scale gardeners. Don’t feel ashamed that you didn’t do no-dig. There’s nothing wrong with planting in ground.
I agree. I want to use the soil I have.
True, it’s not small scale gardening forking over a bit of soil that’s contributing to any ill effects on land use.
I’m certainly not ashamed but there is a huge popularity of no dig online. For me it’s a useful tool when you’re short of time, not physically able to dig too much and if your site has been reasonably well weeded. I’m probably not experienced enough to give a comprehensive guide to it but I know enough to think I’d rather get roots into the native soil sooner rather than later
💪🤩🫛
🫶🙏
For the Algorithm kidda ....and again
Thank you 🙏
I've got to say though, look at that black earth! My area has so much clay. And don't make excuses for digging in the long run you'll keep on building that awesome soil. Anything goes, right.. All roads lead to Rome. I've got to agree with you, having a large area like that and setting everything up you should be allowed to experiment and have some easy ways out to keep motivated.
You're not failing on a bigger scale, this is BIG SCALE LEARNING, TOM! Surely it's not so bad that it isn't good for something
But having those paths overgrown with weeds will probably make it worse, especially with that couch-grass and creeping-buttercup, my very own nightmare! Awesome that there's so many slabs to use! I would gumtree for carboard, surely someone has installed a new IKEA kitchen somewhere. 🤠 Also, look at that! Things are growing well in though! Still haven't mulched the potatoes I see, guilty of postponing the same thing. At least now they're sprouting, such slow growers this spring. I think you're allowed to get some onions sets now 🤣 Perhaps you could cheat in laying down cardboard between the potatoes, to weaken the grass and hinder the weeds a bit? Maybe you could make a pumpkin and summer squash patch, the sprawl our so magically.
My mother suddenly got terminally ill 3 weeks ago and passed just two days ago, so my garden has been neglected and I truly need to get digging for both my mental and physical health. I'm a bit envious of your progress.. My gardening might suffer through this whole time of mourning and all the work that remains with emptying my mothers house... So thank your popping by and motivating me. I guess I should get my french rustic pumpkins and russian kale going before it's all but too late.
I’m so sorry to hear that about your mum 🫂 That’s a really tough one. If you manage to get out and do anything among all that then I’m sure it will be helpful to you. Having said that, go easy on yourself! Sending big hugs
@@tecmow4399 Thank you.. I'm definitely realising my limitations.. 🥺 Luckily the sky has been watering my garden the last couple of days.. The shock and adrenalin is starting to settle, and projects can wait for now.. 😩 Meanwhile I'm glad to have some Vlogs to keep me inspired ✌