Re: Bind weed on allotment....

["neilb" <neilb@i-o.net.au>]

Hello all,
I've just subscribed to this group and most likely missed a lot of the
discussion on bindweed.  Being an Australian I don't know your weeds,
however from the descriptions and some of the answers given bindweed may
have some of the characteristics of our cooch and kikuyu.

While I don't want to sound authoritive I can offer a bit of experience
with them in a vegie garden situation and general.

If you have a mixed pasture with a minor component of cooch grass and spray
it with herbicide it will most likely kill the other species and leave the
cooch grass.  Cooch would have been a minor species because of the
competion of other species.  I am aware of situations where a vineyard has
been sprayed in strips under the grapes and the area under the grapes was
virtually pure cooch with the unsprayed sections between the rows pasture
with a minor cooch component.  The fellow said he had to spray because of
the cooch.

DON'TS
Don't spray with herbicide if you don't know what you are doing.  Though my
understanding of herbicides is limited I have read enough to not use them
anyway.

Don't dig, this will only bury the stolens and make it much harder to
control later.

Don't mulch over cooch or kikuyu, it will only grow through it and you will
have a much harder problem later.

Don't cover it with brick or rock work, it will make it much harder to
control.

Some ideas
Both are surface growing and easily removed in a vegie garden situation if
starting on bare soil, clear to bare earth, hot compost with lawn clippings
and return it a fortnight later (if you have experience with making hot
compost).

Solarisation with black plastic.   Must be done properly.  Dig a shallow
trench around the area to be solarised so that the cooch or kikuyu under
the plastic isn't nourished by the plant growing outside the plastic.  No
part of the plant under the plastic should have connection by
runners/stolens with any plant outside tha plastic.

If establishing a garden on an area with cooch or kikuyu then the best
advice is an anonymous quote I once heard-  "the best preparation for
tomorrow is to do todays work superbly well"

Neil Barraclough



Solarisation with black plastic.  I've established a few gardens on both 

S