By Chris1824
United Kingdom 
Hi
I have really deep and fat nettle roots how do I get rid of them? They go about 4 5 inches deep. I've never had a garden before. The garden has never been touched when we moved in it was a forest of nettles, completely covering everything even the path, ive cleared everything that was on top and loads of bags of soil. But the problem is all the roots. Would a rotavator help?any advice is welcome
25 Apr, 2022
Answers
I would go for SBGs suggestion of hand weeding. This will be very time consuming but will pay dividens later. I would even go as far as not planting anything this year so you can go over the ground a few times to make sure that you have eliminated virtually all of the nettles.
25 Apr, 2022
Previous question
« Hi guys/ girls, I seem to have a problem. Recently I had a Jasmine that I've...
Welcome to GoY and congrats on your garden even though at the moment it seems to be a nightmare of weeds.
The rotavator may make the problem worse as it will cut up roots allowing some of them to grow. There may well be other weeds in there.
You can do a few things.
Dig it all out by hand a chore but you will get most roots out. Nettle roots are yellow so easy to spot
or
allow new growth to occur then spray with glyphosate weed killer
or
cover with a light excluding layer of plastic/old carpet to starve the new growth of light. But this will take months to be truly effective.
25 Apr, 2022