clearing my plot?

[domromer]

Hello this is my first post here. I was directed here from the BYC forum.

Last year I grew my first garden and it was pretty decent. Problem was since I hadn't done any gardening before I wasn't sure what was a weed and what was a vegetable. So I had to let everything grow until I could figure out what it was. Well of course my garden became a forest of weeds. SO now I've turned my chickens on it and they have done a good job of eating a lot but the grass and weeds still keep coming back. So my question is how to I get my garden plot weed/grass free for next years planting? I don't want to use a rototiller so I'm looking for another way to clerar the grass and weeds. Any ideas?

 

[silkiechicken]

There is not much you can do about weeds other than pull them out and fight with them. I do a spring till a month before planting (late may) and then one till before planting. I plant and just wait. I pull out weeds before they get their second set of primary leaves which is on week one. Then I weed every week for 6 weeks or so. Chickens will eat everything and chances are they get your veggies first.

Get to know what you are growing and that will help. If you don't know what your veggie sprout looks like, grab a few of the seeds and plant them in new potting soil (weedless) in the house a few weeks early so you can see what developmental stages it goes through before you have to figure it out in the field. Once you can recognize the veggie, you will learn to spot them in the rows you are planting out. Some plants can also be started by seed and marked by a Popsicle stick if they are a large variety. Be sure though, when starting them in the house for seedling reference, you do it in a sunny spot, or your sprouts will be long and skinny, unlike what will be outside.

Another trick I plan on trying this year is to cover the walkway areas with news paper and keep it wetted down and plat my crops between the rows. This will reduce some of the areas weeds can grow though.

Grasses are very hard to get rid of an are very invasive. For those, it's pull and compost again and again till it goes away. Nearly impossible to rid of though once established. Killing all the roots is key and often that is hard if you can't rototill. And even if you do, roots can still live. Each time you turn the soil, new seeds reach the sun and the UV light encourages germination of many weed types.

Good luck. I would learn what your veggie sprouts look like and that way you can pull things out you don't want.

 

[digitS']

Domromer, I read the thread in the BYC forum, also. Seems like you were saying that you've been displaced from Arizona to the PNW, that right?

Your garden soil will be very wet come Spring. And, it will be a little difficult to get in their early. You might want to concentrate on warm-season plants like tomatoes, pepper, green beans, corn, that sort of thing. Since you haven't had much experience with vegetable seedlings - make sure you plant seed in marked rows. Planting late will give you a few more weeks during the Spring to hammer away at those weeds.

You can do as Silkiechicken has suggested and go over the ground repeatedly with a rototiller. If you don't have a tiller - don't fret for a minute. Especially for that PNW quack grass, the best tools for killing weeds is a spading fork and a cultivator.

The spading fork can work fairly well by itself. And, don't try to lift the soil as if you are using a shovel. Just slice thru it straight down and step back, pulling the spading fork handle to you. The weeds will mostly come right up onto the surface with the tines. You can use a 4 or 3 prong cultivator to scratch around on the surface and extract the roots. The cultivator is especially good for the quack grass. Do your very best to get out every piece of root.

Return in 2 or 3 of weeks and locate everything you missed on the first cultivation. Tiny seedlings are not really a problem if you get to them before they can develop deep roots. The cultivator or a garden rake will kill 'em just fine when they are really small. It's quick and easy - just a matter of timing.

I'm not a great fan of mulch altho' I use it especially around perennial flowers. Earwigs and slugs like mulch and, if it is deep enuf, the voles will get under it and take up residence. Honestly, I'd go for Silkiechicken's newspapers with a light mulch on top before I'd put very many inches of anything down.

Gardening isn't the toughest job out there. If it was, I'd never be able to do it. Further, you've probably had generations and generations of successful gardeners in your family our you wouldnt be here in the first place. And, there may be a good gardener right over your back fence - that person might be your best source of information. Here's wishing you the best of luck.

Steve

 

[silkiechicken]

OH, and if you are only 150 miles or so south, check out your local area to find out when you can plant things out. Especially with things like tomatoes. I cannot plant out before mid may or risk the plants just not thriving. I start about 80 tomato seedlings 8 weeks early in the house under a grow light attached to the bottom of a coffee table, with a fan blowing on them 2-4 hours a day. I plant the 60 or so best plants and go from there. I also have to pick before they turn red as slugs, rain, and frost get them just as they are starting to ripen. It would be a dream to be able to get those huge tomato plants you see in pictures from green houses and places down south.

I find in the area here, since it is really wet, also to not plant peas too much before the last frost as they can deal with cold, but they can' t deal with the excessive moisture in the ground. Don't start corn or tap root type plants inside as that will be a great disadvantage for them when you do plant them out. When putting tomatoes out be sure to put them really deep to minimize summer watering too.

Zucchini is great for taking up space and keeping the under story weed free in their plots. One thing that works well with zucchini is to literally grow them out of un turned chicken compost. I put a chicken tractor in the desired spot for 3 months over winter or so, and dig little holes in the soil though the poo, and put in a few seedlings. They grow and THRIVE in the rich soil. Just don't put the roots into the chicken mulch as it will burn them.

 

[domromer]

Domromer, I read the thread in the BYC forum, also. Seems like you were saying that you've been displaced from Arizona to the PNW, that right?

Your garden soil will be very wet come Spring. And, it will be a little difficult to get in their early. You might want to concentrate on warm-season plants like tomatoes, pepper, green beans, corn, that sort of thing. Since you haven't had much experience with vegetable seedlings - make sure you plant seed in marked rows. Planting late will give you a few more weeks during the Spring to hammer away at those weeds.

You can do as Silkiechicken has suggested and go over the ground repeatedly with a rototiller. If you don't have a tiller - don't fret for a minute. Especially for that PNW quack grass, the best tools for killing weeds is a spading fork and a cultivator.

The spading fork can work fairly well by itself. And, don't try to lift the soil as if you are using a shovel. Just slice thru it straight down and step back, pulling the spading fork handle to you. The weeds will mostly come right up onto the surface with the tines. You can use a 4 or 3 prong cultivator to scratch around on the surface and extract the roots. The cultivator is especially good for the quack grass. Do your very best to get out every piece of root.

Return in 2 or 3 of weeks and locate everything you missed on the first cultivation. Tiny seedlings are not really a problem if you get to them before they can develop deep roots. The cultivator or a garden rake will kill 'em just fine when they are really small. It's quick and easy - just a matter of timing.

I'm not a great fan of mulch altho' I use it especially around perennial flowers. Earwigs and slugs like mulch and, if it is deep enuf, the voles will get under it and take up residence. Honestly, I'd go for Silkiechicken's newspapers with a light mulch on top before I'd put very many inches of anything down.

Gardening isn't the toughest job out there. If it was, I'd never be able to do it. Further, you've probably had generations and generations of successful gardeners in your family our you wouldnt be here in the first place. And, there may be a good gardener right over your back fence - that person might be your best source of information. Here's wishing you the best of luck.

Steve

Yep from AZ but up in Oregon until October.

I'll have a look at my local gardening center for a spading fork

 

[SandraChick]

I posted over at BYC....but for the gardeners out there who aren't on the chicken board...I figured I'd post it here too.
Note: other posters had mentioned black plastic and domromer had mentioned not wanting to rototill....additionally I live in the southern portion of the Pacific Northwest....so to domromer...I'll tell you weeds around here grow year-round---invest in a rototiller- it will be your saving grace--I got mine used for $50 and a new spark plug!

From BYC post:

I'm rather surprised to see so many people using BLACK plastic. You'll actually get way more heat using CLEAR plastic. It's the "greenhouse" effect.

The black plastic gets hot-that's true, but the clear plastic lets the sunrays in and gets the SOIL HOT....thus killing all the weeds as well as the seeds in the top layers of the soil.

The trick is to put planks on the edges to "seal the heat in".

I didn't believe it at first so I tried a section with clear plastic and another with black plastic. The difference is AMAZING.


My vegetable garden alone is about 16X30 maybe a little larger. Here's what I did BEFORE I HAD CHICKENS....and you can skip the rototill part...but it works better with the rototill. Ive used the plastic method on thick grass without rototilling to clear an area and it worked great- it just took a little longer for the greenery to "cook" all the way through.

1. Rototill
2. Let the weeds just begin to sprout
3. Put out the CLEAR plastic (you will smell the greenery cook....but that's what you want). You can do it just so that the greenery is dead...but I usually do it for at least another week if I can--this way it heats up the soil and kills a lot of the seeds too. The amount of time you'll need varies by how much DIRECT sunlight the plastic gets.
4. Rototill (or at least turn the ground for planting)
5. Plant your seedlings (if you're using seeds, go to 6) and water well****putting down soaker hoses at this time is a GREAT idea...no need to bury in the soil--it will be covered.
6. Add several layers of newspaper (section at a time) around the seedlings....if using seeds...punch a hole and then put the seed in through the hole. water the newspaper down as you go...it will make it easier.
7. Add mulch on top of the newspaper (preferably 1 inch deep) (if you don't use chicken poop laden mulch- make sure your plants are fed a high nitrogen fertilizer)
8. Water deeply the first time....you'll notice this method also needs a LOT LESS watering!
8. pick at the minuscule amount fo weeds that do come up and notice how easy they are to pull out!!!!!
9. Enjoy your garden
10. At the end of your season....the newspaper will be almost all broken down and you just turn it all over again...I rototill it in...but you can use a shovel if you'd like!

Now with chickens....I do it similarly.....but I rarely have to use the plastic anymore...I just rototill 3 times 1-2 weeks apart and let the chickens at it. I still use the newspaper and mulch method around the plants that the chickens will eat and I therefore have to put a chicken exclusion fence around those rows.

I'd like to add also, that I do this method in my flower beds as well and I rarely weed at all. I use cardboard around my perenials and trees because it lasts a lot longer and I don't rototill around those plants.

Sandra

 

[Mothergoat]

Hi -- I'm in the PNW, too. Edge of the Mid-Willamette Valley, Cascade foothills. They're right about the rain. We have heavy clay soil, and it is usually WAY past planting time before I can get the tiller onto the garden. Raised beds are the best. However, I always seem to want more garden than will fit in my raised beds, so I have found some other ways to get around having to till. I'm too old and crotchety (and lazy) to do much spading or hand-work. Where I have had problems with the quackgrass, I have put a chicken-tractor for several months. When the ground gets a little too icky from the birds and the rains, I loosen it up with a spading fork, and put the birds right back on it. I usually pen up our baby goats on the garden area in the fall. They clean everything up. Ducks sneak in there and gobble up the slugs. After hard frosts that stop the slugs from laying eggs, I start laying down mulches everywhere. Cardboard or newspapers, topped with soiled bedding from the goats and chickies. Leaves, clippings, whatever. Also a few buckets of sand...every little bit helps my clay ground. Come spring, I plant my seedlings right into the stuff. They grow fine. If I am starting from seed, like for carrots or beets, I dig a furrow, sprinkle the seed, and spread a stripe of sand over the top of the seed. Sometimes my DH will take the fancy expensive rototiller over a finished garden section in midsummer, and it's gratifying to see the nice black soil underneath. But I don't really need to do it.
Have fun gardening! Plants are really pretty forgiving. Don't worry about making mistakes. There's always next season.

 

[jdypat]

Here in Tennessee we can grow some of the most beautiful weeds you've ever seen. tough and with roots to china. I tried the clear plastic method. put it down in early february and sealed the ends good with old two by fours and blocks. the grass just grew up and made a wonderfu tent atmosphere for the plants. so the nxt year I used black plastic. 10 by 20 feet and 10 ml thick it looked really good. I cut x's in it to put my plants and they grew so fast and i was just amazed at this. No weeds.. not one single weed. As summer grew hotter the plants just loved it and the occasional watering was so simple just stick the hose into a hole and let it run down stream... simple.
but then the plants wilted and i starated searching for anwers.. the ground under that plastic was hard as concrete.. hard.. i had done much wrong. the heat ws too much for the ground. no wonder i had no weeds.
next year i l clearaed out my garden space and placed my plants where i wanted them and used 3 layers of news paper around them. safe and snug. stuck sticks in the ground to hold them down..then i went into the wooded area near my house and got bag after bag of pine needles. laid them all around the plants over the news papers. ahhhh you should see what a beautiful grooomed garden i have and how good the plants grow. it does not take THAT much pine needles you'd be amazed how far a hand full goes.
I have not plowed or disc my garden in 5 years.. under those pine needles the soil stays moist and sweet and soft.. i can use a spoon to plant my tomaote plants. i add more pine needles each year and marvel at how wonderful iti s not to fight weeds and waste my water and time on them. the pine needles arenot expensive and can be purchased at walmart..or young boys get excited in my neighborhood to bring me a big bag for a dollar. the woods are full of them here.

 

[Rio_Lindo_AZ]

Hello this is my first post here. I was directed here from the BYC forum.

Last year I grew my first garden and it was pretty decent. Problem was since I hadn't done any gardening before I wasn't sure what was a weed and what was a vegetable. So I had to let everything grow until I could figure out what it was. Well of course my garden became a forest of weeds. SO now I've turned my chickens on it and they have done a good job of eating a lot but the grass and weeds still keep coming back. So my question is how to I get my garden plot weed/grass free for next years planting? I don't want to use a rototiller so I'm looking for another way to clerar the grass and weeds. Any ideas?

When my garden had belonged to my mom, there were many herbs there. She had Rue, dill, basil, and many other types. But she had a TON of mint. Before she knew it, the weeds in her garden was the mint. It had spread all across the garden killing all the other plants. My mom didn't realy care until it got more serious. After the garden was trenched with the mint and you couldn't see the dirt or the other plants. And thats when she gave the garden to me. That same day, I got the tiller and stabed the Ugly plants and added them to the compost pile. After I was done and the garden was clear, I sew some peas. but by the time harvest time came, the garden was packed with the mint. every season, I have to do the same thing. I have to weed the garden till my back breaks. I guess that if your garden has a history of weeds, the next generation of plants in your garden will have weeds. No wonder they call it "Yerba Buena" wich means "Good Weed" in Spanish.

 

[S0rcy]

I recommend a burning. Check with some of the local small farms, Gathering Together or Persephone may be able to help you find/tell you where to rent this: There is a specific piece of equipment, a propane burner that burns the grass and weeds to the root level. For the grass it burns the crown so that unless it is bermuda, it's probably not coming back. Then you can plant your new seedlings directly through without having to worry about them getting choked to death. There are chemical dessicants that may do the same thing for you, but you would have to wait a number of days before planting, etc.

No till is a very hard to live with process, but does keep soil layers undisturbed and pedons don't break down under the stress of being churned up so much. Especially with all the rain we've gotten, mucking around in the soil is sure to break down soil structure something aweful unless we've got at least a few good days. Nutrients move easier through soil that has been undisturbed.

If you don't know the type of soil you have, you can call the OSU Extension and they may be able to tell you the base soil type so you will know approx how much sand and clay you've got. Alot of clay means alot of hard ground come summer time. Luckily the Missoula floods gave us a good amount of loam to work with, yay us! If you have an amount of land (More than 1 acre) You could invite the soil club at OSU to come and "texture" your soil. For the price of a pizza this will tell you the same thing and you will have the advice of some of the most promising soil and crop students available!