Nettle battle

I have read that a mixture of vinegar and salt will destroy nettles. Organic solution too…

Thanks for the tip, Bettina!

Good to hear! I went and had a look today and despite the perfect mixture of rain and sun, there is no regrowth yet on the first part of the patch I cleared 3 weeks ago… fingers crossed that any little sproutlings will identify where I need to dig again for hidden roots!

Totally agree about the chemicals, I wont use them.

But nettles do plenty of harm when they’re running amock through the centre of your lawn and all across your veg patch.

I’m histamine intolerant so react really badly to stings and my daughter has had some really serious run ins with them too.

It literally spoils our use of the garden to the point we dont want to go out there any more. And neither do our clients

Whats the point in having a garden you cant use??

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Nettles have no place spreading uncontrolled across conventional garden - you’re quite right to cull them.

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They will, but you can’t put salt on ground willy nilly, otherwise nothing will grow there after until the salt leaches out. I’ve only ever used salt very judiciously to kill deep seated ivy roots. You fashion a very small cup that wraps around the top of a clean cut root, fill the cup with salt and a few drops of water, cover it and leave it alone. It will take 6-12 months to kill the root outright.

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Thank you :grin:

I managed to get a 100 box of slightly sprouting 80-day potatoes yesterday, so will be getting OH to give a final dig over with the fork, the little one helping me to pull out roots, then in they go!

We bought a couple of sweet potato plants also, to try for the first time.

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Hope it works and you get a great crop! I will feel very guilty if it doesn’t!

Remember to earth them up a lot.

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Thanks! It’s always good to try something new anyway. And there are only 3 of us, we don’t eat tonnes and tonnes of spuds :smile:

I leave my nettles alone until butterfly/moth pupae pupate and fly away when the nettles have served their purpose. When the nettles are mature & woody, early autumn for me, or even winter, I pull them out by hand, after wet weather when it’s so very easy to do so.

Yearly cycle for me, but my crop isn’t very big. But I do my bit for insects, no other reason.

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Aren’t grasses cut down worldwide, Griffin36, in the natural world, on a regular basis? Herds of one kind or another migrate hundreds of miles, annually, to cut grass. Cutting grass is OK - life still goes on - it perpetuates. How quickly do daisies regrow after cutting.

In our garden, overnight :sunglasses:

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We are the same here, you can virtually watch the grass grow at the moment :face_with_peeking_eye:

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Tried taking some cuttings to propagate but they are dying (in fairness I dont know what I am doing) but hack a weed and it just regrows

Maybe we shouldn’t talk in terms of ‘weeds’ anymore - we need them - bung them in with wildflowers?

Six reasons why you should love weeds | One Earth.

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Weeds are just plants you don’t want growing in the wrong place.

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That’s the dictionary definition. When I bought my house here in France there was a rose tree in the front garden, which I thought was in the wrong place. I tolerated it for years but never considered it a weed.

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That’s probably more a reflection of your tolerance and generosity than anything. You feed and encourage all sorts of strays and waifs too.

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Interesting article here about no-dig approach to dealing with ‘weeds’ and propagating healthy soils, using cardboard intially.