Weeding out the Couch Grass from the strawberry patch on the allotment. Strawberries are a good ground cover and I wondered if they might shade out the invasive Couch. Answer: no. Nonetheless they have spread vigorously from the five or six plants I began with.

 Couch is the bane of allotments and I deal with it in several passes in late winter and early spring. It's possible to tease out long strands of root while the soil is moist and loose. Last year I did the first sweep but the ground baked dry and hard by early March. The strawbs suffered in the prolonged drought that followed but the Couch did just fine.

 Disturbing the strawberry plants is inevitable, in fact sometimes they have to be lifted to tug out the Couch from their rootball. Strawberries are propagated by division anyway so I pop them straight back in.