The tomato bed will be on the left as you enter the greenhouse. Back in October, A had spent a whole morning weeding the ground on both sides of the central path. We then covered this in newspaper and cardboard, hoping to smother any remaining weeds. But they're back. Or perhaps they never left us in the first place. Perhaps the cardboard and newspaper mulch kept them nice and warm and snug and just right.
But we're not giving up. I spent the morning of 6 February weeding the tomato bed by forking out the soil to more than a spade depth and hand-weeding this of all visible signs of couch and dock. I also removed bits of stone, plastic and pottery. Before forking it back in again, I lined the bed with cardboard, the idea being to keep out the weeds lurking beneath the paving slabs on which the greenhouse sits. I have no idea whether this is going to work. Unusually, none of our plot neighbours were available for their free advice. Another allotmenteer, Q, told me that couch grass quickly disappears when it finds itself near a tomato plant. So we may be okay.
The photo shows part of the tomato bed with some of the dreaded weeded weeds in A's garden sieve. Apparently, says A, it's possible to make a liquid fertiliser out of couch and water topped off with a layer of vegetable oil. I rather like this very wholesome let's-not-throw-anything-out idea but not in my kitchen. So more on this later, perhaps.
