Garden help

[patandchickens]

I no longer had to worry about weeds much once I STOPPED TILLING!!!
Tilling disturbs the natural, good bacteria in the soil and just make it easier for noxious, invasive weeds to take hold.
Google RUTH STOUT or LASAGNA GARDEN methods.

And then try it in ground that is badly infested with vigorous perennial weeds such as quackgrass or (especially) Canada thistle.

Heh heh heh.

Works real well if main problem is just annual weeds (or nonspreading basically-harmless perennials like dandelions or plantain), and if you don't have a bad vole problem.


Pat, who does not till but has found out what happens if you try to rely on heavy mulching in THIS kind of garden

 

[lwheelr]

We planted this year in a garden that had been abandoned to the weeds for years. Morning glory, goat head burrs and all kinds of nasty things growing in there. So we weeded as long as we could do so practically, but then at one point it just took off and we could not keep up.

Several things helped.

We planted radishes and fast growing lettuce, spinach, etc, between all of the larger plants. We are pulling those up to thin as the larger plants grow. This keeps the water in the soil, and keeps the weeds down quite a bit. Any extras go to feed the animals.

Second, we LEAVE it weedy. That also helps keep moisture in the soil. We just go in every morning and fill a couple of buckets of weeds for the goats, ducks, and rabbits. The kids and Kevin pull mostly tops, but it doesn't matter if the ground stays lightly covered.

Funny thing, when we went from "weeding" to "feeding", suddenly there was more motivation to pull the weeds. We actually stopped buying rabbit food, and the rabbits are living off the weeds. Now, some days, there aren't ENOUGH weeds!

We still pull all of the nasty stuff - goat heads, and stuff like that, so they do not go to seed. But our plants live companionably with the other weeds, which help keep the soil from drying out.

Our garden is producing like crazy.

 

[patandchickens]

Yeah, I happily leave some weeds alone (especially chickweed, my bestest friend b/c it is so sprawly yet innocuous) because they are good groundcover come August

Pat

 

[hillfarm]

I built raised garden beds out of scrap wood. laid down sheet metal for the base, (it was what I had and the ridges allow for drainage. Just cut to fit the base. Bought a trailer load of good compost and filled. Got a great garden this year.
Last year I had clay clods that dried to stone and killed everything. It was a mess.

If you have a good base soil I would say just hoe out a raised row and weed as needed, mulch heavily and water.

 

[bjmstahl]

I like Iwheelr's idea.

 

[miss_thenorth]

We planted this year in a garden that had been abandoned to the weeds for years. Morning glory, goat head burrs and all kinds of nasty things growing in there. So we weeded as long as we could do so practically, but then at one point it just took off and we could not keep up.

Several things helped.

We planted radishes and fast growing lettuce, spinach, etc, between all of the larger plants. We are pulling those up to thin as the larger plants grow. This keeps the water in the soil, and keeps the weeds down quite a bit. Any extras go to feed the animals.

Second, we LEAVE it weedy. That also helps keep moisture in the soil. We just go in every morning and fill a couple of buckets of weeds for the goats, ducks, and rabbits. The kids and Kevin pull mostly tops, but it doesn't matter if the ground stays lightly covered.

Funny thing, when we went from "weeding" to "feeding", suddenly there was more motivation to pull the weeds. We actually stopped buying rabbit food, and the rabbits are living off the weeds. Now, some days, there aren't ENOUGH weeds!

We still pull all of the nasty stuff - goat heads, and stuff like that, so they do not go to seed. But our plants live companionably with the other weeds, which help keep the soil from drying out.

Our garden is producing like crazy.

This sounds like a realy good idea.. Do you leave rows to walk on, or do you plant everything? Do you have pics? A visual would be nice.

 

[lwheelr]

We block plant. So the lettuce, turnips, and radish goes in between the plants in the blocks. With greens like lettuce, we just fill the whole block, and then thin and eat the thinnings. That gets us veggies sooner. Takes more seed, but the seed is less expensive than the veggies from the store.

Weeds just grow in between the blocks, in the pathways, and around some of the big plants once we've pulled out the smaller stuff. So after a while, pretty much everything is green, mostly grass, but other weeds too.

As long as grass does not get real tall it won't cause problems. We just pick it out and feed it to the rabbits. No buying hay. Other weeds are good for the ducks or goats. We just feed them all what they will eat, and SOMETHING will eat pretty much any of the weeds in the garden.

This works for us, because we can feed the radishes, extra lettuce and turnips to our animals, along with the weeds. The key is to plant things that grow fast, so they'll be able to compete with the weeds.

We also fertilize well, but not heavily - the animals provide that.

 

[Wifezilla]

And then try it in ground that is badly infested with vigorous perennial weeds such as quackgrass or (especially) Canada thistle.

Ever hear of bindweed? I fought that for years. Tilling makes it worse because every little tiny piece of it grown in to a new plant.

So yeah, I know what it is like to battle perennial invasive weeds. A layer of card board, a very thick layer of compost and a layer of dirt does work against them. Last year I had no weeds in my tomato bed and only a few spots with quack grass in the other beds. That was in the thin spots where I was running out of compost.

 

[patandchickens]

And then try it in ground that is badly infested with vigorous perennial weeds such as quackgrass or (especially) Canada thistle.

Ever hear of bindweed? I fought that for years. Tilling makes it worse because every little tiny piece of it grown in to a new plant.

Bindweed is different, it behaves more like an annual with a prodigious seedbank (and, indeed, bindweed tends to HAVE a prodigious seedbank). It does not fight hard when mulched. (edited to clarify, yes obviuosly it is a perennial, my point is that in terms of control you have to approach it more like you would a massive-seedbank annual)

Yes, I have used heavy mulching and "leave it alone" with my most bindweed-contaminated areas, and now, 8 years later, I can fairly-safely plant in them without starting the stuff up again.

Quackgrass and thistle and other STRONG-growing invasive perennials -- the kind that fight THRU any amount of mulch, even thru cardboard -- are DIFFERENT.

Pat

 

[Lady Henevere]

I live way south, so things might be different here (I don't think we have the really aggressive weeds discussed above -- in California, perhaps even the plants are laid back), but in general I agree with WZ and lwheeler about rethinking tilling and not fighting so hard against the weeds. Weeds come up because they are supremely adapted to the soil, light, water, etc. in that area. (Your weeds can actually teach you a lot about your soil.) Find something to replace them with -- for example, something edible (to you or your animals) in the same plant family as the weeds, or something else to shade/crowd them out (like lwheeler's veggies), something good for the soil (clover adds nitrogen, for example) and see if you can't crowd the weeds out with plants you want. A lot of "weeds" grow best on disturbed ground (from tilling, etc.), so that may not be the best long-term solution.

I only have a little backyard garden, not lots of land, so this may be more of a small-space mindset, but I thought I'd throw it out there FWIW.

Keep us posted on how it goes!