Preparing the soil in the cutting patch

Preparing the Soil in the Cutting Patch

Our cutting patch is roughly 6m x 6m (20ft x 20ft). This is a manageable size and gives roughly between three and four buckets of cut flowers per week from March until September.

Suppressing Weeds by Mulching

As I've been using this patch of land for about 15 years now, I've got rid of most of the weed seed bank from the soil.

One of the ways that we suppress weeds in the garden is that whenever we have planted out our plants or bulbs for the season we will then hoe out any present weeds and cover the soil with a layer of mulch. Mulch is a layer of well rotted organic matter that is applied to the surface of the soil and is used to improve soil fertility or to suppress weeds.

The mulch helps to suppress any weed seed in the soil as the seeds will not have the energy to grow through such a thick layer and will not be able to make it into the light where they would produce more food for themselves via photosynthesis.

The mulch also feeds our soil, providing the microlife below the surface with all the nutrients that they need to thrive and keep our soils healthy.

You Will Need:

• mulch
• a garden hoe
• 5 - 6mm pea shingle
• cardboard

The Difference Between Perennial and Annual Weeds

If you're starting a new growing patch in your garden and want to kill off any pre-existing grasses or weed seed, then you can cover your patch with layers of cardboard to block out the light.

This cardboard can then be covered with a 5 cm layer of mulch, which will weigh down the cardboard and also continue to rot down into the soil alone with it.

You can also plant into this layer of mulch too.

Perennial Weeds

Perennial weeds can be quite difficult and time-consuming to get rid of, especially when you are starting a new patch in your garden.

Bindweed, ground elder and couch grass have particularly vigorous root systems and if you are an organic gardener, like I am, you have to get into your soil and dig up the whole lot. I think of it as unwinding a fishing net, as you need to follow the roots as far down into the soil as you can and pull them out.

You may need to repeat this process a few times, but this should help you eliminate the bulk of the problem from your patch.

Some perennial weeds to look out for include:

• bindweed
• ground Elder
• couch Grass
• docks
• creeping thistle
• creeping buttercup

Annual Weeds

Annual weeds are much easier to get rid of as their rooting system is much simpler and can easily be pulled out or hoed.

Annual weeds can go into your composting system as long as it's hot enough to kill off any present weed seed (between 50 - 60 degrees for a week).

But you should never put perennial weeds onto your compost heap as they can grow back from just a small piece of root.

Achieving the Right Soil Consistency

I'm always trying to achieve a fine tilth in our growing patches as seeds will grow better if they have less to fight against.

To achieve this we dug in 5 - 6mm pea shingle, as well as compost and manure to our clay soil. To achieve the consistency of topsoil that we wanted, we had to keep digging these into our soil for 5 years before we could move on to the no-dig method.

We now just add a layer of mulch onto the surface of our soil twice a year and this is drawn down into the soil by the worms and microlife.

If You Have Chalk Soil

As chalk and sandy soils are already very gritty, to get them to the consistency you need to grow cut flowers successfully you need to keep digging in lots and lots of organic matter until you have got the depth of topsoil that you need.