rotavating veg patch....

Coveredinbees!!!!

My Dad is going to lend me his Rotavator to go over my veggy patch but do I dig out the weeds first or just dig everything in?

ALIBOBSY

Can i say it depends to be awkward lol.

TBH it depends on how weedy it is and what type of weeds they are.

For example with something like bindweed which regrows from each little peice of root, rotavating just increases the numbers. Brambles are best dug up and dandelions are easier to dig out as any root left can regrow.

Also depends on how quick you want to plant in the ground and what you are planting. My strawberry bed developed a couch grass issue (oddly non of the other raised beds seem to have it-perhaps because they get more regular weeding around the veggies?). So I spent quite a while digging up as much as I could, then planted potatos as they involve earth being moved around and mulches so tend to keep the weeds down as you grow them.

Been clearing the other beds this week and they seem to be 90% annuals/moss type stuff which virtually scraped off in seconds leaving a handful of dandelions/buttercups to dig up. So for those sort of beds I would have been happy to rotavate if I had one.

There is a third option, rotavate them plant through a thick mulch-weed resistant material/black plastic/straw/grass cuttings/compost/manure. The mulch keeps plant roots cool, feeds them and smothers the weeds.

So after all that I think I would have to say for me weed-but only the worst types, then rotavate.

Ali x (sat on the fence )

Coveredinbees!!!!

Ok I think.

Leif

What the other person said.

If you have field bindweed, dandelions and other weeds that regrow from root fragments, you are going to have to tackle them. You could glyphosate them, then rotovate, or you could dig out what you can see, rotovate, then keep on picking new growth, or rotovating, until you exhaust the roots.

Yorkie1

If you want to be able to grow on the ground relatively soon this season, then if you rotavate without tackling the weeds, you will end up simply multiplying them.

Either dig out the weeds first, or wait a few weeks until they are actively growing and then apply a glyphosate based weedkiller, wait for 2-3 weeks for it to work its way down to the roots, and then rotavate.

As another poster wrote, it is possible just to repeatedly rotavate now, which will probably eventually weaken the weeds, but this will take the plot out of commission for most of the season and you may risk creating a 'pan' underneath the level of rotavation.

yoyoegg

Glyphosate the lot 1st

Foxy0810

Me and my hubby had this debate I won and we weeded before rotovating otherwise we were just delaying the inevitable of pulling more of the !!!!!!s up later on when we were growing.
Bit more work initially but will defo be worth it in the long run

Coveredinbees!!!!

I dug out the weeds there wasn't much really, hopefully get it done at the weekend. Thanks