Sunny Soleil

Depends on how bad. I make a spray with essential oils, drop of natural dish soap and water. It's a room and clothes spray. Tea tree for bacteria, hang outside fresh air then another spray of whatever oil mix you love.

I use tea tree to spray on the soles shoes for people who don't want to take off shoes

In my quest to thrive despite successful invasives I have often thought that if we can figure out some good permaculture methods, all the farmland that is lower in value because of bindweed is open to permies. We can buy a few acres on the cheap and work our magic to make a thriving homestead.

What a wonderful thought... Today I was down at the allotment and cut some bindweed stem.. removed the leaves and had my friends little girl hold one end while I braided it. It felt good to be doing something constructive from what so many have dismissed as a terrible weed.

Love the post about the bindweed mite.. I went to look it up.. Aceria Malhberbae... I am wondering if things got out of balance what wound introducing this mite do.. just as all sorts of human intervention over the years has messed with the natural pattern.

Love this thread and am passing on some interesting snippets on the allotments facebook group.

sunny

PS The greenhouse belongs to the allotment next door... separated from mine by a one flag width concrete flat path I've retrieved lots of scrap from one pile on a disused allotment waiting to go the 'tip' 'dump site' including a compost structure, two garbage bins, lots of wood and an old school bench..as well as store baskets [you can cover a cauliflower with that I was told by Miguel an old timer the woman who had it collected 'stuff' And I have visions of how all of it could be used for something.. I love scrapping. And there's a horse stables next door with 20yrs of manure piled up!

I'm so impressed with the wealth of knowledge and excited that this forum exists for such an exchange. WOW... you guys have put together an encyclopaedic wiki here.. Is there a permies wiki anywhere? I can really see how many of the concepts would work when you have land.. I've lived on 10 acres and would not have worried about it.The allotment is a rectangular space with brambles, a broken down shed, and two apple trees at one end.

I'm in the very beginning of the 'design' phase... just being in the space, meeting people in the allotment community [it's an amazing community of old timey gardeners, families and has a fantastic assortment of structures that people have put together from things laying around..very innovative.. and a lot of wealth of traditional gardening know how. some of it is really cool and some of it is 'yeah well.. you need to spray it with Roundup'...

I'd love to be able to scythe the horsetail but height is low varying from 1" to 12" max.

I will start cutting it and putting it on the compost heap.

I also got delivery of 4 x 5 gallons of white vinegar and a sprayer..and I have Epsom Salts here. The soil has not one earthworm but there are other bugs in there.. apart from a neglected apple tree, rhubarb patch, raspberry bushes and lots of tiny potatoes everywhere [when I dig the soil] and masses of blackberries [pick em all and cut back] there is nothing growing but 'weeds' and I've found evening primrose there, which I'm keeping, dandelion - left them, I left a lone plantain in the middle of the plot, lots of nigella - love in the mist, but I've had to pull it and saved seeds... some yellow flowering bushes that bees love

I want to incorporate a 'physic area' with medicinals that work here and a herb space - could be spiral, more varieties of fruit tree and lots of berries.. I'm getting lots of detail LOL.. and have to keep putting it aside to find the pattern and the flow.. I attach some pics

I would absolutely love to have a beehive there.. but as I said, I'm just at the beginning...

Great info about Bindweed.. and it's potential for remediation, medicine and twine.. wonderful plant... and IF I lived on the land, I'd keep it and use it..

Rose Pinder wrote:How much horsetail is there? It's such a great medicinal herb it seems a shame to go to all that trouble of removing it.
Great info.. thanks so much.. and I was actually recommended horsetail a while ago for silica... it just dawned on me that here I am pulling a medicinal weed. If I had space I'd leave it.. but want toredesign the plot which is a long rectangle..

Love Paul's weeding system - thanks - gonna start with that.. in fact yesterday I noticed more horsetail poking through in small patches where I'd dug and pulled.. so this seems like a good way to go. A friend noticed I had evening primrose at the end of the plot..

Paul Wheaton has a system if you are going to weed:

I once moved to a house that was infested with both bindweed and thistle. Imagine my yard as a big rectangle. I started pulling weeds on the left and stopped about ten percent of the way across. A few days later, I started at the left again and picked out anything that cropped up in the last few days and then made a little progresss into the rest of the rectangle. Each brief weeding trip gets me another 5% of new territory. The important thing is to always weed the area you already weeded first. If I didn't do it this way, then the weed would recover in the first section while I was attacking another section.

Sadly we can't keep chickens on allotments here.. or I'd do that.. such a pity.

Wow.. thanks for all the replies... I've been digging and pulling the roots.. but it seems that this is not the best way to go.. [omigod days of digging!]... Today on the allotment I was told re horsetail to keep cutting it and eventually it gives up trying to grow.. seems much the same has been offered here re bindweed. Omigod.. 1 foot of mulch... I guess I'd better start collecting cardboard now!

Appreciate you guys and your experience

smiles
sunny

I've just taken on an allotment in the UK.. and it's full of bindweed and mares/horsetail. I am currently fork digging and pulling it out by hand, but it's a big plot. Would cardboard mulch help alleviate this? I'm concerned it won't because the rhizomes are like wriggly worms in the ground, so many of them and the horsetail is really hard to pull as the roots go down so deep? Help? I'm exhausted with digging and have a month to prepare this before I go away.. want to be cardboard mulched by then...

thanks guys..

~Also someone told me bindweed indicated the presence of heavy metals in the soil? is this true.. if so, it's all over our allotments.. and if that's the case, is there any way to alleviate them?

WOW.. that is amazing information... useful stuff for the future... We've already done the bed.. a few weeks ago.... BUT they may do more.. I've passed on the info to the landscaper gardener who's volunteering at the school...

Another query.. If you are suggesting lots of sand and woodchips.. would that be a layer underneath the regular rotting wood and sod on top... and we're in the UK, south coast kind of Zone 7ish... what kind of plants would be best in a food hugelkultur bed.. as you mentioned the warmth... any suggestions... and as itis a school.. I'm thinking no plants that mature in summer vacation [they go back in September first week or so] .. when they're all away from school...

Thanks so much John. Actually the under surface is 'hardcore'.. not sure if that's the same word in America.. guess that's bits of broken concrete.and brick.. but seems your advice would be right for that as well as plain concrete flat.