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Ground cover between veg?
flannel
Posts: 1
in Fruit & veg
To cut down on weeds, I was wondering if there are any short dense plants that could be sown after the veg is sown to cover the bare soil in between.
The plant shouldn't take much from the soil or compete with the veg. Ideally it would add something to the soil either whilst growing or after digging in.
Would clover work?
0
Posts
I'd rather tickle around for a few minutes with the hoe once a week. Ground cover would compete for water and nutrients and provide a lair for slugs, snails and other baddies.
If growing something between your veg plants was ok, why wouldn't we leave the weeds?
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Have to agree with scroggin and verdun as I also grow veg with closer spacing than usually recommended so they effectively keep the weeds down themselves. One other reason is they grow smaller; I used to grow cabbages almost the size of footballs but with only the two of us there was always a lot of waste or the excess had to be kept in the fridge. With closer spacing I now grow them to the size of large grapefruit which is the perfect size for us and means everything is that much fresher - nearly all veg come straight from the garden to the pot.
That sounds like a counsel of perfection, Bob, and one I shall try to emulate!
All good advise from above. Mulching and a good hoe at least once a week will keep down weeds amoungst your veg. A regular hoe before the weeds appear stops the seeds from germinating or roots taking a hold.
You can also grow some permanent planting through a weed membrane. Give the ground a good mulch with well rotted muck before covering and cut holes to plant through. Strawberries, fruit bushes, globe artichokes and herbs all do well- there's probably more stuff.
I grow a few things between slower growing crops which helps control the weeds.
Radishes between rows of carrots and lettuces between the parsnips worked well for me. By the time the carrot and parsnip tops are big enough to suppress weeds themselves, the 'catch' crops will have been harvested.
This year I followed the recommended spacings and did have a lot of hoeing to do. The only other time I raised any veg before was in raised beds following the 'permaculture' methods of close spacing. Never weeded that once, so I'll be taking the advice from above and planting closer this year.
I don't really need marrows that are too long to fit in the oven as 'boats', pumpkins that need a wheelbarrow to be harvested, or parsnips that need trenches dug out either side to get them out of the ground again next year.
You could lay layers of newspaper or cardboard down between the rows, it will eventually rot down to be dug in. Strips of weed matting is another option.
I plant things closer than recommended, and once the seedlings are up I mulch with newspaper covered in a thick layer of grass clippings and/or mown over leaves left over from last fall. If you wet the newspaper with a hose as you lay it down before covering it in a mix of grass and leaves, it will keep the breeze from blowing it away while you work. The thicker the pile of grass clippings on top the better, you won't have to weed at all. Next spring you can dig it all in.. or if you are like me and do the no-dig method, just push the un-composed layer off to either side a bit to get down to the newly made soil in order to sow your new seeds. With crop rotation, the new seeds are usually in a slightly different location within the bed than the previous years.
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