Just sprayed round up on all the garden area. Do you do this?

[dave27889]

I have a pretty large garden. It is 70 feet by 70 feet. I could not do anything last year due to 2 slight heart attacks and a 7 level spinal surgery. The garden area was just left to it's self. We did mow the garden area last year but nothing else. It is warming up here and the weeds and wild onions are popping up every where. I got out the ole pump sprayer and sprayed the whole area with a soultion of roundup at 2.5 oz to a gal of water. I even sprayed a little over a foot around the outside of the garden area just to keep a good border. I have a man coming to turn the garden over this week and then put it into rows for me.
I plan on letting the rows sit for another week after they are finished. That should let any weeds that are turned up to sprout and any I missed to grow a little and then I can hit it again before I start to plant anything. I called the people that make roundup and asked if a week was enough time to wait before planting and they said that should be fine.

The big question I have is this. Do any of you do it this same way or do you do it a little different. I was trying to get some horse manure to put down in the garden before it was turned over but found that everyone around here was using wood chips in the stalls instead of wheat straw. I am just going to use some around the plants and put down black plastic sheeting. Please give me any suggestions you have that you think I could use. Please do remember I can't do a lot of manual labor. This is going to be mainly a veggie garden and I have a seperate area for growing my watermelons, cantalope and my cucumbers. I also plant some pumpkins a little later in the year in the same area. It is just my wife a friend and myself that do the whole garden thing.
I also raise chickens and have about 70 chicks hatching this week. They start on 3-2-2011 and gain on 3-4-2011. I have a few turkeys hatching on3-7-2011. It's going to be a heack of a week.

 

[vfem]

I never use roundup... period.

 

[PotterWatch]

I never use roundup... period.

Ditto.

 

[dave27889]

I don't usually do it either but with the way thing were grown up I really had no choice. The heart problems and the back problem made it impossible for me to do other wish. Once I get it back to where I can mulch and manage it I will go back to that.
I know that on here roundup is a bad name but I had to bit the bullet and do it. Even doing that today put me back on the couch and taking my meds and using the 2 heating pads. I am fused from the tail bone up 7 levels and still have 2 more blown disc along with sever diabeties and the 2 small heart attacks last year. The garden and my chickens make life bearable plus I have a great wife and 2 great kids but 1 is married and the other is in college.

 

[hoodat]

Sorry but I see no point in poisoning food I plan to feed to myself and family. It sounds as though you are trying to grow too big a garden. Cut the size down to what you are physically able to handle. Hiring someone to till the garden area would not cost you much more than the roundup did. After the initial soil breakup is done most gardening is not heavy physical work if done properly. I know many people unable to do heavy work that garden every year. Learn lasagna type gardening and rely heavily on mulching.

 

[seedcorn]

Dave, not knowing anything about your area of the country. Here are some things to think about if they might work.

1) Been there, almost had to do that on glysophates. I just tilled them under. Might want to consider if you have a good mat of dead weeds, to just have the person till where the rows are going to be, leave the pathways a mat of dead weeds.
2) If you must spray again, use a guard on both sides of the row to stop misting where the plants are or will be.


Good luck on the garden. Good thing you didn't use the wood shavings w/manure on the garden as it would have tied all your nitrogen up. Altho, you could use it on the runs in the garden as you'll have a year to break the fiber down.

 

[Collector]

Dave, I have also used herbicides to control weeds in the past.
after you have it tilled try putting down a weed barrier on the areas that you wont be using right away. Something like black plastic might work to keep the weeds at bay until you are ready to use it.
Hopefully you will be able to get some composted materials and manure to put down before you till.

Do not bite off more than you can chew, with your health challenges sounds like you might want to stick with crops that like to grow verticle like corn.
With 7 fused vertabre I dont think you would make a very good radish picker LOL. Good luck with your garden!

 

[dave27889]

collector you are right. I am only doing corn, pole type beans, cucumbers climbing on lattace work, some tomatoes, and okra. The wife is taking care of the squash, melons and sunflowers. The area has some weeds that just won't die without either spraying or heavy mulching. With medical bills reaching $400,000 for the back operation, $275,000 for the heart attacks and monthly cost of medication reaching around $400.00 my cost we can only do but so much. Thank God we have decent insurance but the deductibles and co pay has taken a toll on the ole bank account. I am having 6 rows of sweet corn and Paula has various types of squash she is planting. We have friends that are going to buy veggies from us to help us out.
Did not mean to offend anyone by using roundup but sometimes you have to do things to help make ends meet. I just heard about using vinager for weeds and have ordered that last night. I asked all my friends about it and no one had ever heard of using it. We are in eastern NC and right in farming country. I even asked my older relatives about it and they are around 90 and one is 93 and cooks and cleans and takes care of his little 12 acre farm with just a little help from family. He even does chickens, a couple of hogs and a cow or 2. He is tough as rawhide. He had never heard of it either. He said that a hoe was all he used but he only does a small garden about 10 foot square.

 

[hangin'witthepeeps]

We pay a neighbor with a tractor and tiller attachments to come plow our big garden. He plows at least 3 times before we plant. Plows under the grass/weeds that grew over winter, them plows in the fertilizer we use (leaves, ashes from burn piles, chicken/horse manure, then plows to lay out the rows. He just plow the first go around yesterday.

 

[wsmoak]

I've been sorely tempted, but I haven't yet. I *might* mask the garden beds and do the pathways if the bermuda grass gets out of hand. (Really. Why won't it grow where I *want* it to grow and stay *out* of the garden?)

You'll catch a lot of flak here for using it at all, but in the grand scheme of things... I figure I'll probably die of something far less exotic than glyphosphate poisoning.

-Wendy