This page makes use of an innovation of mine called 'dual-purpose text and image.' Click anywhere in the text below (not in the white space around the text) or anywhere in an image, to get to the top of the page very quickly and easily - there's no need to find a separate top button or to scroll. The pages on Web design describe this innovation and others, including 'the rail,' which can also be used to reach top of page. Text links in the list below are shown as underlined but not in colour.

New ideas in weed control and plant support and protection

Use of weed-control fabric to clear weeds from an allotment or garden.
Priorities after taking an overgrown/neglected allotment or garden
Supporting and protecting raspberry plants

Use of weed-control fabric to clear weeds from an allotment or garden

When weed-control fabric is used to kill weeds, then the fabric is liable to be moved by high winds, despite the use of rocks and bricks, or pegs to keep it in place. In the process it may be damaged, even shredded, in places. The fabric has to be kept in place for a year or longer - plenty of time for gales to do their worst. Finding the rocks or bricks to weigh down the fabric at the edges may be difficult. Even if they're readily available, it's laborious and time-consuming to carry them to the fabric if the area to be covered is at all large. If gardeners are using fabric instead of glyphosate or other herbicides, as they should, then it's important that everything possible should be done to eliminate the disadvantages. Perhaps nothing can be done about the need to wait for a year - although the use of manure underneath fabric may well achieve a considerable saving in time - but the usual methods of using fabric are hopelessly inadequate, in my experience, with disadvantages which can be overcome very easily.

If the intention is later to make narrow beds surrounded by boards, then it’s better to lay down all the fabric, mark out the beds and paths and put the boards in place. The fabric will then stay in place.

This shows boards already in place to form the boundary of the beds. (When the beds are eventually cultivated, then the boards will be arranged more tidily, without any gaps between them.) The boards, held upright by metal stakes, which are clearly visible here, prevent the fabric from moving even in the strongest gales. (The fabric used here is cheap, non-permeable fabric.) Visible on the right is more expensive, permeable fabric which was laid down much earlier and secured by heavy stones and bricks. Fabric secured in this way is very vulnerable to strong winds - and tends to look untidy.

Fresh, not rotted, manure can be placed underneath the black fabric. The boards are not raised a little, as in this photo, but pressed fully down, to form a good seal. The manure generates ammonia gas, which is toxic to plants and acts as a natural herbicide. It kills weeds and makes the action of the black fabric more efficient. This, at least, is my reasoning. The idea still has to be tested by a comprehensive series of scientific experiments. Fuller information in the page on Manure - a new use.

If it's intended that the paths will be covered by wood-chips or straw, then the material can be put in place at this stage. It makes no sense at all to follow the usual procedure of laying down fabric and then waiting a year before the boards and path materials are added. There's the obvious further advantage that the waiting time of a year or more can be put to good use, including putting in place the boards and putting down path materials, such as wood-chips.

The first two diagrams below show the disadvantages of using rocks and bricks or pegs to 'secure' black fabric. In these established systems, the fabric is secured only at intervals. There are gaps in between (shown as 'X' in the diagram below) which are progressively enlarged by strong winds. Before long, it's likely that the fabric will be pulled away from the rocks or bricks, even if these are heavy, or the fabric will tear where it's secured by the pegs and that there will be further damage to the fabric, or that the fabric will need to be secured all over again. In the third diagram, the board (seen from the side) secures the fabric along its length and there are no gaps for the wind to enter. The board is secured by a stake but it's not visible. If manure is placed underneath the fabric, then of course the fabric will not be flat.

The fabric here is very close to the soil or in contact with the soil. However, it's possible to support the fabric in another way, as shown in the lower diagram below. Light is excluded just as effectively, the fabric is secured against wind damage just as effectively, but now there's a space. It may be that this system kills weeds more quickly or more effectively. As yet, I haven't tested this idea, and, as in the case of 'manure as a natural herbicide' it would be impossible for me to test the idea extensively.

A start can be made on cultivating one or two beds, without laying down fabric in these places, accepting that in these limited areas, extensive weeding will be necessary. (When the weed-free areas become available, then the beds already started can be covered in their turn.)

Priorities after taking over an overgrown allotment or garden

If the garden has a long, overgrown and neglected hedge as well as a large crop of weeds, then it's natural to assume that a start has to be made first on clearing the weeds (and clearing away any rubbish) and that the cutting of the hedge has a much lower priority. When the hedge has been cut, disposal of the woody waste presents a dilemma. The Centre for Alternative Technology's factsheet on cool composting presents the alternatives very clearly (Page 10.) It argues the case that sending it to a landfill site is more 'environmentally friendly' than making a bonfire and burning it, although the bonfire 'generates potash-rich ash.'

I'd argue that whenever land has to be cleared of weeds - in an established garden or allotment as well as when a new garden or allotment has been taken over - then disposing of the woody waste by burning gives the opportunity to dispose of weeds by burning at the same time. Disposing of weeds by burning is as effective as disposing of weeds by hoeing - more so, in fact, since weed seeds are killed as well. I own a powerful flame weeder which runs on paraffin, and I use it very often. The opportunity to flame weed without the expense of paraffin is too good to miss. Flame weeders are also an effective way of setting fire to the woody waste, although even with a flame weeder, it can be surprisingly difficult to start the bonfire, if the woody waste is at all damp.

So, before setting out the beds and the paths, if we intend to use this system of beds and paths, we pile the hedge cuttings where the beds will be located. It's far less important to begin clearing weeds from the future paths, but we ensure that where the waste is placed over these paths, the paths are comparatively narrow (say 60 cm) rather than wider (say 90 cm.) It's too much trouble to pile waste exactly over the future beds. Then, we light the bonfire with a good environmental conscience, and when the bonfire has finished burning, we make use of the potash rich residue. This should be stored under cover, in a dustbin, perhaps, until it can be used. As is well known, it makes a very efficient neutralizer in compost heaps, used in place of lime layers.

Weed control by hoeing and weed control by flame weeder aren't final, of course. Annual weeds may be killed, but not perennial weeds, or grass, which qualifies as a weed when the grass is growing where it will compete with our crops. Perennial weeds have their deep roots or other adaptations and grass is adapted to withstand hoeing, cutting and burning. Weed control by bonfire isn't final either, but the ground will be clear for quite a time, we've achieved the first stage in weed control, we've killed weed seeds as well as weeds - we've also eliminated diseased material and sources of infection in this area - and we can use other tactics to prevent the weeds from regrowing.

This use of bonfires doesn't qualify as an 'innovation' but it does illustrate the importance of giving thought to the order of activities and the use of materials, as part of the wider study of efficient working in the garden or allotment.

Supporting and protecting raspberry plants

I only give one method of protecting raspberry plants here. I've also devised another method, which can also be used for other soft fruit, such as red currants, white currants and gooseberries - for this, please see Cage. A convenient method of protecting low-growing soft fruit, strawberries, is given on the page Boards.

In 'traditional' systems of supporting and protecting raspberry plants, support is separated from protection. To support the plants, leaving aside the single post system, which is inadequate for more than a few plants, either the post-and-wire system or the double fence system is used. For the post-and-wire system, the uprights at the ends of each row are typically about 2m high, for the double fence system the uprights are a little lower. If it's decided that it's necessary to protect the crop against the extreme damage that birds can do then by far the best solution is to erect a cage to protect the crop. So, a large cage, with its own supports, is either bought or constructed. The cage consists of a framework made of horizontal and vertical members with netting attached.

In my system, the support system is integrated with protection. There's no reason to erect a supporting system for the canes and then to erect a second, independent supporting system for the netting which protects the raspberry canes. Fruit cages are expensive, and a significant part of the cost comes from the supports. This is unnecessary duplication.

The vertical posts at the ends of each row in my system are higher than the vertical posts generally used in the traditional systems. They are about 2.5m high and have at the top short horizontal members about 1 metre long, like the short horizontal members of the double fence system. This is because attachment of the galvanized wires to which the canes are tied or which support the canes isn't their only function. These posts are also used for attachment at a higher level of two galvanized wires, running the length of each row, over which the netting is draped. These galvanized wires, like the lower wires, are secured by straining bolts. The netting is tied to the wires at intervals with small loops. The edges of the netting at ground level are secured with tent pegs. The whole system represents a very big saving in time and money.