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Veg patch prep help

jamesdbrown1jamesdbrown1 Posts: 6
in Fruit & veg
Any advice welcome and appreciated for novice gardener…
I’ve just moved into a new house and there’s a couple of raise veg beds at the bottom of the garden which are very overgrown with nettles and weeds. I’ll cut everything back but do I need to treat them with anything to stop them growing back and do I need to get a load of new topsoil?
Here’s a picture and advice on how to tackle them to prepare for planting some veg would be gratefully received. Thanks

Posts

  • LiriodendronLiriodendron Posts: 8,328
    I'm afraid that bed is full of bindweed, which is hard to get rid of because it has fragile roots which go down a long way into the soil - and it re-grows from any bits of root which are left when you've weeded it out.

    If you're trying not to use chemical controls, your only options are either to dig the bindweed out whenever you see it, i.e. repeatedly, or to cover the bed with something to exclude light (overlapping sheets of cardboard, weighed down, or groundcover fabric) for at least 18 months.

    If you're happy to use weedkiller, you're still likely to need more than one application, but it's a quicker solution.  Use a weedkiller which breaks down on contact with the soil.  I'm sorry there's no quick fix for this...
    Since 2019 I've lived in east Clare, in the west of Ireland.
  • StephenSouthwestStephenSouthwest Posts: 635
    edited July 2023
    If it were mine, I'd pull the bindweed off the raised beds, stick a couple of spuds in, then deal with the bindweed more thoroughly when lifting the spuds.
    I'd cover any area I'm not using just now with overlapping cardboard to control and weaken the weeds, maybe with a layer of local manure on the top if I might be planting in there later.
  • nick615nick615 Posts: 1,487
    Two good pieces of advice above, but I'd add one.  However you do it, once you've cleared the area, if the soil proves to be good and workable, you may wish to get rid of the raised beds?  They could be delapidated anyway and need replacing, but your predecessor(s) might have just followed the fad unnecessarily - which you don't need to!
  • war garden 572war garden 572 Posts: 664
    raised beds are not at fad. the beds look
    to be in good shape.
  • diggersjodiggersjo Posts: 172
    war garden 572 said:
    raised beds are not at fad. the beds look
    to be in good shape.
    I kind of agree with this, but it depends on quite a lot of other factors, such as suggested if the beds are a fad or there for a reason? We have veg beds in a very shaded area where huge trees (TP on them) I guess have resulted in poor soil/growing conditions. These were here when we moved in and we've left them and worked with them as is.... Might be worth doing this using the great advice above and seeing what happens. You can always change things later.
    Yorkshire, ex Italy and North East coast. Growing too old for it!
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