Weeds

It's amazing that, even with winter fast approaching, weed seedlings still manage to pop their heads up. Love or hate, their ability to survive is amazing.

Of course you could eat them. No joke, many of our weeds are edible and have been foraged for centuries. And you can't do better than use the Pocket Urban Foraging Guide, full of good advice, interesting facts and great identification photos.

Listed below is information on how to deal with weeds. Since I try to grow organically, there's no advice about using chemicals.

If you find yourself taking on an allotment plot that's gone to pot and is full of weeds, don't despair. Just tackle a little bit at a time. It's amazing how quickly the first small bed will become two, then three, then more. Accept you won't turn the whole plot into vegetable nirvana within one season. Prepare the rest of your plot for future development by covering with layers of damp cardboard interspersed with organic matter such as grass clippings. Not only will this suppress weeds, the topping will compost down and improve your soil.

If you want more information than that shown below, read the Illustrated Guide to Tillage Weeds, which gives heaps of information to identify and understand all our most common weeds.

Annual weeds

These germinate, grow, flower, and set seed all within one year. The seed can remain viable for decades in the topsoil until the right conditions exist for germination. Although a single weed can produce tens of thousands of seeds, not all are viable or survive.

Nevertheless, you must hoe or pull out weed seedlings regularly to avoid them setting seed and adding to the already plentiful reservoir waiting to pop up. So long as there are no seed heads, you can add annual weeds to the compost pile.

Ideally, plant vegetable crops once you've grown them on in a greenhouse or cold frame, so they are easily distinguishable from weed seedlings.

Perennial weeds

These survive for several years, overwintering by storing food in their roots. And it's the roots that make perennial weeds so difficult to get rid of. Some grow several metres in length.

If you're a fan of rotavating soil, you certainly don't want to do that if it contains lots of perennial weeds. By chopping up the roots you'll end up with hundreds of new weeds.

To eradicate perennial weeds, carefully dig out all the roots you can get to. You'll certainly miss some, so when more appear dig those out too. For a longer term strategy, chop off any growth the appears above ground. Gradually the roots will use up their energy stores and eventually die.

Never use perennial weeds for composting.