Watch those weeds

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This year I tried the "Heritage" tomatoes offered as plants. Not all the plants supplied survived and grew but of those that did one cultivar, Yellow Peach, seemed to me to be outstanding.

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By Richard Bailey, Wellington,Surrey

We all know that we should get rid of weeds over the winter, it says so in every book! But are weeds just unattractive and untidy - the sign of a lazy (or busy) gardener? Might they even be useful as a self sown green manure? Or are they a real threat to next year's crops

As with so many things in gardening there is no single answer. Some weeds are harmless, even useful on the ground overwinter. Nonetheless a number of common winter weeds provide a winter home for disease producing organisms - most often viruses. These should go - and you might as well get rid of the others too.

If you want a green manure be one of the last big spenders and buy seeds of fodder rye, clover, tares, field beans or (if you have no club root) mustard.

The following are some of the diseases that may overwinter on our commoner weeds and the crops that they principally affect. We call the weeds alternate hosts.

Disease	Alternate Host	Affected Crops
Beet western yellows virus	Groundsel, hairy bitter cress shepherds' purse	Lettuce
Cauliflower mosaic virus	Hairy bitter cress, shepherds' purse Hairy bitter cress	Cauliflowers and other brassicas
Club root	shepherds' purse	Brassicas (including oriental brassicas), radish, turnip etc.
Cucumber mosaic virus	Chickweed (including the seeds of infected plants), fat hen, groundsel	Cucumber, courgettes, marrows, Melons,pumpkins, squashes, tomatoes (fern leaf virus)

A number of pests are found on common weeds in winter (and in summer), aphids are amongst the most common. But research suggests that these are not necessarily the same species or strains as affect crop plants. Similarly fungi, the easily visible orange rusts for example, are found on weeds but these too are not the types that parasitise crops (although the rust commonly found on groundsel will infect cinerarias).

This article originally appeared in the Members Bulletin, the journal of the National Vegetable Society, which is sent quarterly to members. You can Join the National Vegetable Society here

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