That'll be fine then. I was asking because purple sprouting is in the ground all winter but calabrese will be out in the autumn. So put your second batch of cavolo nero somewhere else, put the plants that are ready now into the weedy bed with as much weed removed as you can manage and keep it hoed, crop these early, take them out in early autumn and then go ahead with clearing out or replacing the soil, sheet mulching or whatever you decide to do to get rid of it in a more permanent way.
Gardening on the edge of Exmoor, in Devon
“It's still magic even if you know how it's done.”
Here goes with some photos, fingers crossed that it works this time! So these were the smaller of the broccoli, kale and cavolo nero plants before I potted them on. I think they are too small to go into the ground just yet, mainly because I think they would be susceptible to slugs. I would be interested in thoughts on this.
This is what they look like now
These are the bigger ones which I think are sturdy enough to fend off the slugs
Pics of roots to follow
No longer newish but can't think of a new name so will remain forever newish.
This is a bucket of roots from the proposed planting area for the brassicas. Last year the raised bed had potatoes in it, and in digging out some of the roots I found a rogue potato which I had obviously missed at harvest time, but it isn't responsible for all the roots that are there now.
The bed is 120cm x 140cm and I put a decent layer of compost off the heap into it a few weeks ago and covered it with thick black polythene to help the soil warm up before planting. When I put the compost on top it was nice and loose and not at all matted together. When I took off the polythene the other day I found a number of pasty looking seedlings - mostly sycamores - and when I went to dig a planting hole I found the compost was a mass of roots all attached together.
I had found some roots in the compost heap and I had been sifting them out before using the compost on the garden - clearly I must have missed some! I think the roots were introduced when we combined two old heaps that had never been properly managed, they had just had mowings and other clippings put on them but hadn't been turned or managed in any way and had consequently taken ages to make compost. When putting one heap into the other I found roots at the bottom of the heap but I though they were probably from nearby trees. Nothing seemed to be growing from them so I tried not to move too many across and just left most of them at the bottom of the existing heap, thinking they were attached to something underneath and thus wouldn't be an issue.
I'm now not so sure that they were tree roots, although some of the roots in the raised bed are brown like tree/big shrub roots, and when I tug them the brown outer sheath comes off leaving a strong thin white inner root that is harder to break. Other bits of root are thick and white, a bit like comfrey, but I don't think it is comfrey as we have loads of that elsewhere and I like to think I recognise it by now.
So, if I weed out most of what I can, would it be worth putting the black polythene back down and planting through it in an attempt to stop the roots growing into something? At the moment it seems to be just roots with no leaves or anything, but they are clearly growing well underground even without any leaves to further support them. All thoughts are welcome, thanks for reading the ramble!
No longer newish but can't think of a new name so will remain forever newish.
Best way to ID would be to leave some of the roots in a pot somewhere, long enough for some leaf to develop. Could maybe be couch grass, but that is a lot of root growth in a short time!
Have you got trees nearby? We found that ash tree roots forced themselves up through the permeable membrane and into our raised beds within a very few months of the beds being installed and used. The roots were growing upwards seeking out the water as we were of course watering the raised beds. We had to dig out the tree roots every time we planted or sowed anything in the raised beds.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
There are no trees in the immediate area of the raised bed but there are big established trees around the compost heap. I did think of potting up some of the root so I know what it is so I will try that. I am of course also now wondering whether the roots really couldn't have grown that fast and maybe they were in the bed, but there were only potatoes there last year and roots weren't an issue. I guess that's the thing with gardening, sometimes it's just a mystery!
No longer newish but can't think of a new name so will remain forever newish.
First thing is I agree that the bigger plants are ready to go out and the smaller ones will be fine in pots for a bit longer. Nice healthy looking plants
Generally they do look like tree or shrub and not perennial weed roots. So I think you may be right - they were probably there before. They'll take moisture out of the ground so keep your plants well watered until you can solve the mystery - maybe adding lots of nutrients for the potatoes 'attracted' roots from some nearby trees that hadn't bothered coming that way before. In the autumn maybe you could introduce a root barrier of some sort around the beds to keep whatever it is out.
Gardening on the edge of Exmoor, in Devon
“It's still magic even if you know how it's done.”
Posts
“It's still magic even if you know how it's done.”
So these were the smaller of the broccoli, kale and cavolo nero plants before I potted them on. I think they are too small to go into the ground just yet, mainly because I think they would be susceptible to slugs. I would be interested in thoughts on this.
This is what they look like now
These are the bigger ones which I think are sturdy enough to fend off the slugs
Pics of roots to follow
The bed is 120cm x 140cm and I put a decent layer of compost off the heap into it a few weeks ago and covered it with thick black polythene to help the soil warm up before planting. When I put the compost on top it was nice and loose and not at all matted together. When I took off the polythene the other day I found a number of pasty looking seedlings - mostly sycamores - and when I went to dig a planting hole I found the compost was a mass of roots all attached together.
I had found some roots in the compost heap and I had been sifting them out before using the compost on the garden - clearly I must have missed some!
I think the roots were introduced when we combined two old heaps that had never been properly managed, they had just had mowings and other clippings put on them but hadn't been turned or managed in any way and had consequently taken ages to make compost. When putting one heap into the other I found roots at the bottom of the heap but I though they were probably from nearby trees. Nothing seemed to be growing from them so I tried not to move too many across and just left most of them at the bottom of the existing heap, thinking they were attached to something underneath and thus wouldn't be an issue.
I'm now not so sure that they were tree roots, although some of the roots in the raised bed are brown like tree/big shrub roots, and when I tug them the brown outer sheath comes off leaving a strong thin white inner root that is harder to break.
Other bits of root are thick and white, a bit like comfrey, but I don't think it is comfrey as we have loads of that elsewhere and I like to think I recognise it by now.
So, if I weed out most of what I can, would it be worth putting the black polythene back down and planting through it in an attempt to stop the roots growing into something? At the moment it seems to be just roots with no leaves or anything, but they are clearly growing well underground even without any leaves to further support them. All thoughts are welcome, thanks for reading the ramble!
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
I did think of potting up some of the root so I know what it is so I will try that. I am of course also now wondering whether the roots really couldn't have grown that fast and maybe they were in the bed, but there were only potatoes there last year and roots weren't an issue.
I guess that's the thing with gardening, sometimes it's just a mystery!
Generally they do look like tree or shrub and not perennial weed roots. So I think you may be right - they were probably there before. They'll take moisture out of the ground so keep your plants well watered until you can solve the mystery - maybe adding lots of nutrients for the potatoes 'attracted' roots from some nearby trees that hadn't bothered coming that way before. In the autumn maybe you could introduce a root barrier of some sort around the beds to keep whatever it is out.
“It's still magic even if you know how it's done.”