Allotment old pond as veg plot – abandon or continue

Hi all,

My first post on this forum.

Around September last year I took ownership of an allotment, which had been largely used for show rather than growing. I have zero experience of gardening but have always been interested in vegetable growing as I have a high interest in food in general.

One of the first things I did was to dig up the old pond area and turn it into three free standing raised beds. I didn’t quite double dig it but got beyond a single spit, digging up the assorted rocks, weeds roots etc.

Now we are almost in summer proper my varied vegetables are now coming through. However many of the old pond plants seem to be re-growing, slowly encroaching on the first of the three rows. I am trying to keep on top of them and I knew this was a strong possibility so no real drama in that regard. In particular there is one plant, an orange root, which looks a lot like a spiky sweet potato, which seems to be really strongly re-emerging.

My quandary is as I have two raised beds in other parts of the allotment as well as a greenhouse, I’m not short of space. Do I persist next season with these rows and the effort or digging out regrowth? Or maybe plastic mulch and woodchip the area for a year or two put planters / grow bags in the space until these legacy plants are killed off/ reduced?

Any thoughts welcome and please bear in mind I am a complete beginner so if I have overlooked anything obvious please forgive me.