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Can I grow veg next to Bracken?
AmandaD
Posts: 6
Hi
I have just taken on an allotment, and right next to my plot is a patch of bracken, which seems to line the outer edges of the field. I have read a little on how the spores from bracken are dangerous to breathe in, if you do it repeatedly. Basically, I am wondering if anyone knows whether it is OK to grow veg next to the bracken, as in on the other side of the (rather open) fence? I am guessing the spores will release and inevitably be on said veg? Also, if I am spending a handful of hours up at the plot each week, I am thinking I might be putting myself at risk?
Does anyone have similar experience or knowledge on this kind of stuff?
Thanks 
0
Posts
I'd just keep the bracken strimmed back early in the season and not let it grow and get to the stage where it develops the spores.
Yes, they're bad for you if you breathe them in quantity etc, but kept cut down they're no problem.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
As for spores on the veg... Washing the veg under a tap should get rid of them.
That's great, thanks. I was thinking as long as I wash them thoroughly I should be OK, but wasn't sure on the breathing bit! Thanks for your help
I don't know, my veg patch is surrounded by the stuff, and it even grows between the vegetables however often I pull it, but I never had any trouble. I know it has a reputation for damaging you over a long time, somehow, but I don't know, the stuff is everywhere here int he countryside but people don't drop dead because of it, to my knowledge... Cut it back if it makes you uneasy, but personally I would not worry too much.
It's taking over the hedgerows here, killing off all the wild flowers, there are great patches of it, no flowers at all, even the daffs didn't bloom last year in the places it's growing, I wonder if the council should be removing it, they don't cut the hedges down till later but soon there will be nothing to cut down but the bracken.
sorry, not answering your question, just having a rant
Rant away... I cut down tons of it with a scythe every year from my ponies pasture. It is a handsome brute. I can't hate it, it's so beautiful, but I wish it would just stop growing back so quick!
Many years ago when my family kept pigs we bedded them on cut and dried bracken, the resulting manure was put on the veg plots, with no obvious bad results, and it was cheaper than straw bedding.
One of my summer jobs when I was 12 was working for the Forestry Commission cutting the bracken down round young trees with a heugh. Would 12 year olds be allowed to do that these days?
just googled "heugh" to no avail, what is it?
Cornelly, I made bracken bedding for my ducks... they seem fine with it, as long as I strip the leaves from the spiky dry stems (spiky because they are broken and sharp, not because of thorns, of course) so they don't hurt their lil feets.