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| Squashes ready for battle |
I am annoyed. Annoyed and frustrated. Annoyed frustrated and thoroughly vexed. “By what, Best Beloved?” I hear you ask, concern in your voice, your gentle brow lightly furrowed (and having evidently recently re-read the Just-So stories).
I am sick and tired of the continual battle against couch grass
on my veg plot. I pull it up. It comes back. I double dig. It comes back. I
cover it up. The sheet blows away in the wind. Like I said. Vexing.
So I have a plan. An ambitious plan. “And what is thy scheme
of redoubtable cunning regarding the aforementioned productive location, Best
Beloved?” I hear you ask (being possessed of ‘satiable curiosity and having
spent a bit too long in the company of a Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snake with a
scalesome, flailsome tail, I can only presume).
Aha. It is this.
Aha. It is this.
For each squash or courgette I have dumped two thirds of a
heaped wheelbarrow of well-rotted horse manure, unceremoniously on top of the
offending weed. In the centre I have
created a well and planted the well-grown cucurbit into the ground, with a
thick manure mulch spreading at least 30cm in all directions. So far I have planted about 20 of them, on a
grid system, roughly a metre apart. (‘Crown Prince’, ‘Festival’,’Polo’ and ‘Hundredweight’
from Suttons; Courgette* ‘All Green Bush’ from Kings Seeds; Courgette ‘Sunstripe’
and squash ‘Golden Hubbard’ from T&M; ‘Hawk’, ‘Honey Bear’ and ‘Uchiki Kuri’
from DT Brown; and ‘Marina Di Chioggia’ from Franchi...since you asked).
There are three possible outcomes. 1. The squashes scream ‘Argh!
No! My roots! The nitrogen, the ammonia, the pain!’ and keel over. 2. The squashes get
eaten by slugs (which will then inform my next post). 3. There is a big and
satisfying fight and, ideally, a dense mat of squash foliage outcompetes the weed
of doom.In the Just So stories, the eponymous elephant’s child gets roundly spanked by his tall uncle Giraffe with his hard, hard hoof; by his hairy uncle Baboon, with his hairy, hairy paw; by his broad aunt the Hippopotamus with her broad, broad hoof and by the verbally tortuous Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snake, with his scalesome, flailsome tail – while handing out helpful advice on the subject of the crocodile that is biting his nose** and effecting a rescue (on the banks of the great, grey, green greasy Limpopo River). Which, incidentally, is how the elephant got his trunk.
The question is, will the fabulously well nourished squashes
give the couch grass the good hiding it deserves, or will the couchgrass romp back and smother
the young squashes in an orgy of vegetative propagation and nasty, nasty, spiky shoots?
Or will they combine into some sort of horrific pestilent chimera of epic
proportions*** to try and spank me in a kind of revenge match? Only time will
tell.
*My track record for growing courgettes is
woeful, but winter squashes generally work rather well.
** Which is the answer to the question ‘What do crocodiles
have for lunch?’
***Who you gonna call? Well, Rick Moranis presumably. In a
horrific epic chimera of Ghost Busters and Little Shop of Horrors.
I usually plant my cucurbits IN the manure heap on my plot. They love it and romp away. 'Couch grass?', they say, 'Pah!'
ReplyDeleteSlugs, however, are a very different proposition indeed.
But, it'll be the continuing cold they'll hate even more and will stay shivering at the bottom of the well :(
I have been digging up couch grass for the last year on my plot (its a new virgin site). I am doing it the hard way, no sprays & no rotovating. All the perennial weeds are taken to the dump. It is definately decreasing and disappearing. However, thistles are driving me mad, I have pulled so many I dont even need gloves anymore my hands are so hardened. Als discovered bindweed which I suspect came in my free compost green waste so will not be having that next year.
ReplyDeleteWell I do hope all those courgettes etc survive. I will be round in the autumn for the biggest ratatouille in the world. Good luck with your fight back plan.
ReplyDeleteI have a similar issue, and i'm planning a similar method of WAR!
ReplyDeleteYou could always use the couch grass - for cystitis, even helping with enlarged prostate, it's quite potent. No doubt if you wanted it, it would go away. Also, some say it actually repels slugs, so maybe it's not a bad thing to have around your curcurbits anyway.
ReplyDeletevery interesting and wonderful post that have lots of useful information.
ReplyDeleteelectric couch