tortoise
Wild Hare
oops I said the wrong one. it's quackgrass
HOMESTEADING AND PHYSICAL DISABILITIES
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Britesea
Sustainability Master
yeah, quackgrass, witchgrass, it has a lot of names. Only thing it's good for as far as I'm concerned is the roots are a good medicinal for UTI.
Only way to fully control it that I know of is to continually get rid of the aerial parts as soon as they crop up, so the roots eventually starve and die. That can take at least 3 years, and it will take constant vigilance after that to keep it from creeping in again. It also spreads from seeds as well.
Only way to fully control it that I know of is to continually get rid of the aerial parts as soon as they crop up, so the roots eventually starve and die. That can take at least 3 years, and it will take constant vigilance after that to keep it from creeping in again. It also spreads from seeds as well.
wyoDreamer
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I pulled up a piece of Quack grass that was starting to grow in the garden - it's root broke at the edge of the garden where the sod starts. It was 3 sections w/ root cluster between and almost 5' long. 5' of root before there was a blade of grass sticking out of the soil - sheesh! No wonder it is so hard to keep out of the garden.
tortoise
Wild Hare
You're right! daily hoeing and digging out roots for a couple weeks before planting made a huge difference for me. I was able to eradicate it from most of my garden. It's been 2 years since. The areas I didn't get to are bad and it creeps in around the edges every year too. I'm going to have to take some photos of this trench. I think it will work if I hoe the bottom of the trench routinely. That's a lot less hoeing area than 5 feet around the outside edges that would be near 2,000 sq ft of hoeing (no wonder I never can keep up with it!)
flowerbug
Sustainability Master
in the case of quackgrass the trench will help, but putting down in that trench some kind of barrier to the roots will help prevent the roots from spreading under the pathway and then into the garden. so having a trench started is part of the solution to helping contain it. 
once it is in a garden the more you can track down the roots and get them up on the surface and exposed to the sun and letting them dry out and become worm food the better. since you will likely be doing this often enough that they can't bloom and have seeds forming this will go a long ways towards controlling them in a garden. depending upon what kind of soil you have determines how easy it is to get all those roots out of there.
we have some grasses here that make quackgrass look like a nice and mild mannered relative.
once it is in a garden the more you can track down the roots and get them up on the surface and exposed to the sun and letting them dry out and become worm food the better. since you will likely be doing this often enough that they can't bloom and have seeds forming this will go a long ways towards controlling them in a garden. depending upon what kind of soil you have determines how easy it is to get all those roots out of there.
we have some grasses here that make quackgrass look like a nice and mild mannered relative.
flowerbug
Sustainability Master
yeah, depending upon what type it can take a very concerted effort to remove it completely.
tortoise
Wild Hare
baymule
Sustainability Master
Pictures of quackgrass please? I don't know what it looks like.
tortoise
Wild Hare
flowerbug
Sustainability Master
the worst grass here is a version which grows along the large irrigation ditch which runs through our property. it will put roots down over 2ft in the clay here, it drops plenty of seeds and grows 4ft tall. we call it wild rice but it isn't that, but the runners will go 20ft along any edge if you don't pull them out they will keep going as long as they sense light. the ditch i've pulled all of those pallets off of had an invasion of this grass that i had to stop some 14years ago and i would pull bundles of roots from the black plastic that looked like copper wire runs except they were the fat white roots of this grass. it is still back there along the ditch and i won't eradicate it because it helps keep that bank from eroding, but i won't let it get very far past the rhubarb and into the yard again if i can help it. it gets mowed and pulled out when i see it.
there are other bad weeds here too, but this grass is tough to eradicate. i've dug it out of my neighboring green manure patch (which is our primary subsoil of mostly clay) a few times.
the other mentions of weeds that i struggle with are the form of speedwell (i think it is - a very tiny small blue flower on the plant), sow thistles, canadian thistle, horsetail, chickweed. horsetail is a pretty tough hombre to get rid of too. have to dig out every little bit of root you can find and usually more than once.
i do have pictures on my website, but i'm short of time right now to track them down...
