Horsetail in future veg garden site

kylith

We're moving (Hooray) and the house we're moving to has a reasonable garden, for me as I'm used to tiny city garden, and I'm intending to grow veg in the back. Down there looking today and the garden, which has been neglected for a couple of years, is full of horsetail. It's probably been mowed prior to going on the market which probably won't have helped matters.

I was planning to do a no-dig system by putting in raised beds with a layer of cardboard at the bottom. Would this still be a go, or would the horsetail be able to punch through this? I'd prefer not to have to nuke the site.

gozunda

kylith wrote: »

We're moving (Hooray) and the house we're moving to has a reasonable garden, for me as I'm used to tiny city garden, and I'm intending to grow veg in the back. Down there looking today and the garden, which has been neglected for a couple of years, is full of horsetail. It's probably been mowed prior to going on the market which probably won't have helped matters.

I was planning to do a no-dig system by putting in raised beds with a layer of cardboard at the bottom. Would this still be a go, or would the horsetail be able to punch through this? I'd prefer not to have to nuke the site.

Horsetail will not be defeated by cardboard I'm afraid. The rhizomes are remarkably tough and hard to eradicate.

DesperateDan

This stuff is hard to get rid of, I am using Pearl 3 times a year and watching it come back slightly less every year.

Pearl does annihilate it within about a week though. From what I've heard short of digging it all out it is a multi year operation to kill.

my3cents

Getting rid of it depends a lot on how established it is soil type and depth. On most soils it will go down for miles (well I've dug it up when fixing drains nearly 6ft down). If its been brought into a site with shallow soil and a compacted subsoil there's half a chance you'll get rid of it.

Worst case senario was a in a garden I worked in 20 years ago that had deep sandy soil. I sprayed it 4-6 times a years with Roundup for 10 years and it was still coming up. It was massively knocked back but there were still little bits in evidence. The kill always looked good after using glyphosate on it but it always came back.

I have it in my present garden and just try and ignore it as much as possible.

If it was in the veg garden I'd very carefully dig as much out as I could and then "hoe when I needed to" and as many old gardeners would add to that "and hoe when you don't". Any time you see it in open soil where digging won't affect a growing crop dig out as much as you can.

Its one of those weeds that will grow from the smallest amount of root so if you have been over an area and dug out as much as you can you will probably get a lot of much smaller plants coming up. Thats the stage when you really need to do some more digging to get the little bits up. My experience is that these small bits are killed with a glyphosate based weed killer,but the small bits never all come back at once so its not a one off job and the stuff that comes back from deep down is never completely killed off. I used to find spraying really early in the morning when the dew was still on the plants seemed to be slightly more effective then spraying later in the day, I use to like to knock the dew off with the spay, theory was if the plants were wet with dew then they would absorb more weedkiller.

What you grow will make a big difference to how the land cleans up. I'd consider growing a lot of stuff at least to start with that can easily be hoed around, plants that grow big like courgettes can be a real pain to hoe under and its really hard to hoe off Equisetums around earthed up potatoes.

There is some old gardening lore that says your supposed to hoe Equisetums when its raining for the weird reason that the soil sticking to the cut stems helps kill them, heard that a few times and know of a few gardeners (one who incidentally was the head gardener of the house where they filmed the omen) that swore that was the way to do it.

Don't forget you have to deal with any roots you dig out, I use to stick them in a wood burner and burn them but if you have to put them in the bin double wrap them in old plastic.

I'm sure someone will be along soon to say they are edible or some such rubbish so you can eat your way through them but traditionally they were used to make homemade pan scrubbers. Gather a load together in a bundle and tie them together or try a handful loose. There's a lot of silica in the stems and they are a little bit abrasive so it does work.

Honestly if I wanted a really good garden I'd never buy one with Horse Tail or Mares Tail anywhere near it. In fact I'd swap them for Japanese Knotweed any day. I know I can get rid of JK but I've never truly beaten Mares Tail and I really have give it a lot of effort.

Lumen

p88

https://www.gardenorganic.org.uk/sites/www.gardenorganic.org.uk/files/PerennialWeedReview2008_0.pdf

I would put back plastic under the raised beds and drainage to the sides.

Maybe turn the rest into lawn for a few years, mowed by robot.

And plant trees and shrubs that won't be bothered by it and will shade it out.

kylith

I've heard that it is edible, as long as you're not too fond of your teeth because of the silica content. Would that I could be picky about buying because of the garden, but that's not feasible.

So the consensus would be a gylphosphate weedkiller? I'm not too keen on the idea of having to wait a couple of years before I can get growing, which is why I was planning on raised beds in the first place, coupled with the fact that the soil in the area is clay.

Lumen

The problem is that glyphosate might not work.

You could also consider drainage as part of the solution. I only have mare's tail near a stream.

kylith

Reading that link you posted it looks like the best bet might be drainage and out competing it. We're right next to a field which is probably where it's coming from in the first place so I'll probably never be rid of it completely, although there's none in the front garden.

my3cents

kylith wrote: »

Reading that link you posted it looks like the best bet might be drainage and out competing it. We're right next to a field which is probably where it's coming from in the first place so I'll probably never be rid of it completely, although there's none in the front garden.

Drainage doesn't make a lot of difference its quite capable of just growing deeper to get to water. Try and find out which one(s) you have. The common field one is Equisetum arvense.

If you want to get rid of the types of Equisetum that grow by river banks then yes that will work but they aren't the types you get in most gardens.

Competing doesn't work either. It can hide the Equisetum but they carry on growing. Its effectively what I do when I say I ignore them. They are growing away under a shrub canopy but need hoeing off occasionally when they get more vigorous and poke through where they can be seen.

Hoeing does reduce the vigor of the plants and in a veg garden is a very good way of keeping the thing down, but you really do need to be out at least once a week with the hoe.

If you think its coming from the field then if you can spray off a strip along the boarder and keep it sprayed that might help in the longer term.

my3cents

The area with Mares tail that I said I sprayed for 10 years I eventually turned into a sort of conifer garden. All the plants were taller types of conifers with single stems not ground cover ones. The idea was that I could hoe the Mares Tail off easily. Really just the best way of tidying up a rough area in a 5 acre garden.

_Brian

kylith wrote: »

I've heard that it is edible, as long as you're not too fond of your teeth because of the silica content. Would that I could be picky about buying because of the garden, but that's not feasible.

So the consensus would be a gylphosphate weedkiller? I'm not too keen on the idea of having to wait a couple of years before I can get growing, which is why I was planning on raised beds in the first place, coupled with the fact that the soil in the area is clay.

Nope glyphosate will kill the top growth but not the root system.

There are chemicals out there that kill it.

I’ve used a combination of Grazon90 and MCPA which killed it with one spray. Both these are selective professional use weed killers used on farms and now can only be bought under licence.

Lumen

_Brian wrote: »

Nope glyphosate will kill the top growth but not the root system.

Are you sure you mean glyphosate rather than glufosinate?

Gyphosate is systemic so should kill roots if it is taken up.

my3cents

Lumen wrote: »

Are you sure you mean glyphosate rather than glufosinate?

Gyphosate is systemic so should kill roots if it is taken up.

I think the problem with glyphosate is that it isn't taken up by this fossil of a plant in quite the same quantities or as back as far into the root system as it is with other plants.

Having dug over areas previously sprayed with glyphosate based products it is clear that there is root damage but as you go down through the soil you soon find roots that haven't been affected.

My theory is that the roots are in sections like bamboo canes and the glyphosate only goes into the first few sections of the root and the plant has an easy way of closing off the sections that are damaged with glyphosate. You can literally dig the dead root from the foliage down and eventually find it connected to living roots.

Lumen

This article seems fairly sane and balanced.

https://laidbackgardener.blog/tag/equisetum-arvense/

macraignil

kylith wrote: »

Reading that link you posted it looks like the best bet might be drainage and out competing it. We're right next to a field which is probably where it's coming from in the first place so I'll probably never be rid of it completely, although there's none in the front garden.

I found this approach worked fairly well in my parents back garden. I improved the drainage and planted fruit trees and shrubs and some strong growing herbs like rosemary, oregano and lemon balm and found after a couple of years the amount of mare's tail was dramatically reduced and not really a negative impact on the fruit crop or herbs. I think hoeing is not very effective as it will leave strong root pieces right near the surface where they are quick to regrow. Instead I used a trowel to loosen the soil around the mares tail root and took out as much as possible when I saw some growing. I was able to leave it on the soil surface once dug up and it provided a good mulch and did not regrow from the bits left to dry out and die. It's probably not eliminated completely but I would need to go looking to find it.

vicwatson

Would finale be any use for this ?

_Brian

Lumen wrote: »

Are you sure you mean glyphosate rather than glufosinate?

Gyphosate is systemic so should kill roots if it is taken up.

Problem is the plant is resistant to taking in enough chemical for a systemic kill, people see the top growth die, but it reshoots quickly enough as the root system has survived

baaba maal

_Brian wrote: »

Problem is the plant is resistant to taking in enough chemical for a systemic kill, people see the top growth die, but it reshoots quickly enough as the root system has survived

I was told by somebody to bruise the visible parts of the plant before spraying- obviously only suitable for small infestations. The outer cells are quite tough so this leads to a better uptake of the pesticide.
Apparently.