Public Enemy Number One: And the winner is...

Each year brings different conditions and some veggies do better than others. Unfortunately this also applies to weeds as my old enemies seem to devise new ways of taking over my plot.

Here are the top 5 worst offenders on my plot:

1. Dandelion
2. Bindweed
3. Creeping Buttercup
4. Couch grass
5. Stinging nettles

Dandy

This year there seems to have been a particularly strong dandelion crop. It’s levelling off a bit now but around April, conditions were nigh-on perfect and they just seemed to be everywhere. Thankfully the picture here was a local roadside verge, not my plot. I’ve dug up hundreds of them, and cut the tops of plenty more that I didn’t have time to dig out. Like Arnie, they'll be back. As plants, you almost have to admire them; cheerful bright flowers, lush foliage, tough long roots, all thriving with no care and attention whatsoever.

Second on my list is bindweed. There’s just no stopping this stuff. The only way is to remove the roots from the soil, but they’re so brittle and go so deep they always break off to leave a bit behind. Again, so devious you could almost admire them if they weren’t choking my strawberries and getting tangled in my netting.

Next are buttercups. Yes they look lovely in a meadow, but they creep their way round the edge of my raised beds like crazed groupies trying to get into a boy band’s tour bus. You literally have to beat them off. My main reason for hating these is they have particularly tough roots and will cling on, under the assault of a hoe or trowel to come back when you’re not expecting them, usually right next to an onion or somewhere hard to get at.

Finally, the creeping menace of nettles and couch grass. You neglect weeding for a couple of weeks and before you know it they’re back! Thankfully they are mainly restricted to one side of my plot where they weave their nasty secret way through the soil from the neglected plot next door. I find the searching white roots quite revolting for some reason and take a grim satisfaction in pulling them up and burning them. The nettles also make a fine compost tea which seems a fitting end, especially if they’ve managed to sting me whilst raspberry picking.

So those are the plants I could happily live without. Close runners up, if I was doing a list of 10, are plantains, volunteer potatoes, speedwell, dock, and oilseed rape.

What’s on your hit-list this year?