Ground Preparation

This section describes what to do when you first pick up a spade

Clean soil

If this is what faces you when you start, then you are lucky indeed! All that may be required is to work in some of this:

before planting appropriate crops, described in the crop rotation section.

Brambles and other shrubby growth

This need not be as bad as it looks! Whilst clearing larger woody shrubs is heavier work than clearing weeds, it is certainly less fiddly and time consuming. I have cleared brambles using a slasher, grubbed out the roots by fork and found friable soil underneath, enriched by years of leaf fall from the brambles.

Smaller Perennial Weeds

In my experience, couch grass (Elytrigia repens) and dockleaves (Rumex obtusifolius) are the most troublesome amongst the smaller perennial weeds. Ground elder (Aegopodium podagraria) , stinging nettle (Urtica dioica) and dead nettle, (Lamium Sp.) can also cause problems. These weeds spread locally via root and can re-grow from as little as 10mm (3/8 inch) of root to form a new plant. Effective eradication methods must therefore kill or remove the roots and are detailed further in the control section.