Nettle battle

Gardening
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Hi All,

It has been a rather long time since I have contributed, and for that I am sorry. It is (as usual) a long story but that’s a topic for another post!

After being on the market on and off since last spring, we have decided to stay put at Chez Robins for the time being… so it was high time to attack the large and growing nettle patch that was starting to take over the lawn from the side border against the wall.

It’s not the first time I have tackled this patch in the 10 years we have been here but I have been far too lacking in time, energy and motivation the last 2 years to do anything at all about them. So they regularly grew to 2m tall during the summer and the patch was getting seriously out of control!

I have been working away at them roughly 2 days a week for the last 3 weeks whilst I’m between jobs (again!) as that is the most my back will allow me to do. As it is, after all the pulling and digging, I can barely stand after an afternoon’s work. I was pretty determined to get it finished today but didn’t quite make it. Even so, I reckon I’ve pulled up about 90% of a roughly 50m2 patch. So close!!

The next question then becomes what to do with the land afterwards?

We’ve had various veg patches on parts of it across the years, including space for potato plant trenches, courgette plants, pumpkin patch and other squashes - basically anything needing a lot of space outside the main potager.

However, the weeds and most notably the aggressive nettles, have always taken over this area and been almost impossible to manage. Ending up in poor veg yields or total demoralisation and just letting them take over.

Whilst I’ll do what I can to remove as much of the nettle roots as possible, I’m under no illusions that I’ll have beaten them in one go. And once I start my new job, less time to fight the regrowth. So… any smart suggestions as to what to do with this patch?

If I put down a box of grass seed that I have, I’m sure that the I’ll be having to trample all over it picking out the regrowing nettles and that won’t take very well?

Or I can try veg again as I do (in theory) want to grow more again this year and therefore need the space. It takes a lot of energy to fight persistent nettles amongst the veg plants!

Any other thoughts to put in the mix, dear community?

In the meantime, have a great evening, one and all.

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Well done, it’s clear you’ve been working very hard… I hope someone has good suggestions for the future of this bit of the garden… :crossed_fingers:

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Hard work!!

You might be lucky and find some bags of seed potatoes still in the supermarket/garden centre. Our had some at half price yesterday.

So do no-dig potatoes, just need to lay them on the soil and cover them with grass cuttings mixed with compost/straw, and keep adding more cuttings as they grow. I would put cardboard down between the rows as well for more weed suppression.

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The Fiskars weed remover is very good and saves a lot of back breaking.

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Hi Jane, this looks like a great idea! Grass clippings I will have, straw I can try to negotiate reasonably from a local farm I would imagine. Compost, I am woefully short of this year though…

Will give it a go!

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Try to find cardboard too. The nettles will have added lotsof mitrogen to soil. Do you have sny wood ash in your stove? A light sprinkle will add potash slso good.

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When I was reclaiming parts of my land over the years from very wild undergrowth, I rotovated the ground and it seemed to get rid of all the roots of whatever was previously thriving, including some very hardy brambles that came back relentlessly year after year! Without exception, all the areas I’ve rotovated have remained clear of invasive culprits and now take far less time to manage. This may work for your nettle bed.

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You have the magic touch. Rotovating has nasty habit of chopping roots into small pieces and so multiplying the offending plant massively.

I immediatrly covered with heavy black plastic, carpèt thick carboard and left for 6 months reduces risk…

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I have reclaimed two paddocks of around 1 1/2 acres that were 6 ft high brambles and nettles in the past 2 years, all I did and the farmer next door agreed was cut it all down with a wheeled and hand strimmer and then just cut it regularly.
Within six months the nettles started to disappear as they need fresh growth to survive and I now just have grass paddocks without a nettle in sight.
Just two acres to go now :wink:

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Wood ash from the insert and cardboard I have a-plenty, happy days! I think I can cobble something together!

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I agree, I won’t risk rotavating either, it has always spread the problem even further for me in the past too…

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We had a patch of nettles like yours, though a smaller area some years back. Mowing regularly for a few months pretty much finished them and the area reverted to rough grass. If I don’t mow now the nettles don’t return, suggesting they are gone, rather than just subdued.

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The farmer has taken pity on me this year :yum: the two acres that is left, I have to cut the trees down and he will pull out the stumps and using the tractor slow flail mower the brambles into submission for 6 months and then let me cut it with the lawn tractor, he also needs to put a couple of field drains in through the paddock so it’s a win win for both of us.

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I can’t even weed my land without a pickaxe currently it is baked like concrete with no rain for nearly a year and no water allowed to be used outside to damp it down. I have the problem of hidden building rubbish too and kept digging up broken roof tiles, wood, lumps of concrete, ceramic tiles and because it was previously a plantation of date palms, those little devils keep growing back as well. Bring on some rain.

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Hi, I have one of these and love it for dandelions etc but it never occured to me that it would work on nettles… have you tried it?

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Cutting regularly would work, but my impression was that Danielle was not trying to return it to a paddock.

They are sneaky…give it 9 months of inattention and they may well be back. Ours come from neighbouring land and it take several months for their roots to tunnel their way onto our land.

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At the risk of being shouted down, we let our nettles thrive - they are great for Red Admiral butterfly caterpillars. Also they make an excellent fertiliser “tea” for the garden (let the nettles rot down in a bucket of water, then add a small amount to a can of water).
Also, they are good for us. I pick the small leaves and make a tea for us which is light and refreshing and has a lot of health benefits.

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I too love reading about their benefits but unfortunately they are outweighed by a rampaging 5 year old getting stung every 3 seconds (as well as her friends, our gite clients, me trying to do anything around them etc). And they just dont stop… I would literally have 1850m2 of nettles and no garden left

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Yes, use it wherever I can.

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I must admit, on the “covering up” method, have just remembered that a few years back we put a greenhouse on part of the patch with a very thick linoleum floor underneath and the nettle roots grew right underneath the whole thing and popped up again happily on every side.

Some of the root runs were 4m long and it was a total “mat” under the linoleum when we removed the greenhouse, which has of course all now just grown back within the overall patch