The Bindweed has gone......Long live the Bindweed !!!!

Just as you start to think that you've beaten something, it creeps up on you and gives you a swift kick in the goolies and then laughs in your face just to let you know tat it's still there ! That is what the Bindweed has gone and done.....oh well not to worry. We thought that we'd got bed two clear of the dreaded stuff, we filled bags and bags with roots through digging,digging and then some more digging until the soil was clear this winter gone, but........

I think the mistake I made, was being lulled by the appearance of the soil , there must have been some roots I'd missed and then the tiller did it's work of propagating the bits I'd missed ! So the onion sets were planted out and were just starting to poke some green growth through the soil when guess what ?

Yes up popped some bits of green and purple spear like foliage, damn it's back !

So this weekend has been mainly spent carefully lifting the onions then digging down about 2ft deep over the whole bed and removing the roots of the Bindweed that had started growing again.
The onions have gone into one of the new smaller beds I dug down near the shed, only time will tell to see if they will now grow having been moved ?

 
The bed they came out of is not going to see the tiller again.........ever ! I'll just rake and break the clods down.....to be honest the soil is pretty good anyway in that bed and fingers crossed we will at least get the growing season out of the way before the Bindweed gets a grip again.
All the stuff I've read just says to stick at it and eventually the Bindweed will be beaten..........There was only a couple of spots in the bed this time which no doubt would have spread if not attacked again.........I've taken out another garden bag of roots , there can't be much left ,if any, I've taken every single little bit that I could see and if I felt the root snap I dug, until I got the other end. I will no doubt have missed some bits but I'm hoping that each time I dig there will be less and less until eventually it is all gone.

So bed number two has taken three steps forwards, two backwards......but at least that is still one step better than it was before the winter digging started. That bed has now been dug over four times this year.....it won't be getting another until the autumn now.
The plan has had to be changed, bed two is now going to be our Brassica bed, so that the crops are above ground and away from harms way from any Bindweed roots.

The rest of the weekend has been spent doing a few of the easier jobs.....my back was aching after the dig,pick,dig,pick routine on bed two. So I decided to get the Raspberry bed boxed in with some treated boards. It will mean that cutting the grass path around the bed will be easier and it looks neater.
                                                     

Before:                                                                                          

I've mulched around the Raspberry canes with some freebie compost from the allotments bins in the hope that the mulch will help keep the moisture in the soil.

After finishing the Raspberry bed it was a quick whiz around with the lawnmower and strimmer before we dashed off to Sandhill Garden centre for a spot of lunch and to buy a few bits and bobs as well......well you can't just walk around without buying something can you ?

After Sandhill I got changed again and went back to the plot to finish off the bean frame, I bought some more canes whilst we were out as I'd run out, oh and some teasle twine to fasten them together with. We now have a sturdy frame for our French beans and Butter beans to grow up. The beans are coming along nicely in the pots at home so should be ready in a couple or three weeks or so.

That's about all ....as if that wasn't enough !   I've now got some more seed trays and so I'll be sowing some of the salad leaf veg this week and bring it on indoors before planting out. I might even get round to building a cold frame next days off.