weed free garden??

[Kenneth Flippen]

new to the website. last year was a disaster the first few weeks I did alright with the weeds then started working long hours at work and two weeks later the weeds had took over. my garden spot is right on top of where they used to feed cattle hay for 20 years or better the soil grows plants very well but weeds come up terrible I guess the seeds fell out of the hay. is there anything I can do to keep it under control? any help or suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks
Kenneth Flippen

 

[digitS']

Kenneth, welcome to TEG !

It may not seem like it but it's a good sign that ground can grow weeds! We have the feed lots as examples but I have seen livestock farms where no plants grow where cattle gather. I mean, as far as the eye can see . . . :/

The salts in manure and especially urine are toxic to plants where they are concentrated in the ground. And, it isn't just what we normally think of as salts. Plants that grow are sometimes toxic because of concentration of nitrates. All in all, it may have been a good thing that the ground wasn't productive this year and that there is another 12 months for nature to correct the imbalances.

A good weed barrier is newspaper covered with wood chips. I have used it very effectively in paths around beds of perennials. You aren't trying to incorporate that wood into the ground anytime soon and it will probably be necessary, in a year or 2, to pull back the bark and apply new sheets of paper to beef up the weed suppression and keep the wood from being beaten down into the soil.

If you have permanent paths, your weeding can be focused on the growing beds. I know that it is tuff to find the time and energy to weed in your free time . But, if you can make yourself comfortable on a stool in the path and make use of a small hand hoe - the task will be easier.

Don't try to have too much ground in cultivation. If you can only get thru 300 square feet of weeding during the peak of the season -- having a garden no larger than 300sqft is a wise idea . It's easy to till ground and plant crops from here to the horizon in the spring. And, it is such a remarkably common mistake.

The worse thing you can do is allow the weeds to mature and spread:/. Get 'em when they are young and tiny! It is easy to run a cultivator or rake across the top 1" of soil and uproot weed seedlings that are only a half-inch tall. Show up in a day or 2 and rake 'em again. Two or 3 times of this easy work and those weed seedlings are toast and you haven't disturbed the ground deeply enuf to bring more seeds up to germinate.

Get to know your weeds. Some of them make pretty dang good "compost crops." Something like quack grass takes some special efforts to eradicate. Never think that you can run a rototiller once thru quack grass and that will be the end of it. You will just scatter the roots and each will grow another weed.

Finally, if it looks like you aren't going to get the weeds under control any other way - consider chemicals. Our entire shift to "no till farming" has been made possible by the use of weedkillers.

I use Round-up in the ornamental gardens. Those gardens are nearly as large as where my veggies grow, synthetic chemical free ! One year, I took over a garden space that had been planted, watered but unweeded the previous year. It already had a good number of weeds but the new gardener thought he could just ignore them . Ha!

I planted ornamentals that 1st year and, perhaps, should have sprayed the entire garden and done my planting very late. However, I just concentrated on the beds for hand weeding and used the weed killer in the paths as is my usual practice. It took a lot of work to beat down the quack grass, bindweed and suppress the crabgrass when those seeds sprouted. Still, I got things in good enuf control that this garden has been very productive with vegetables since.

Steve

 

[Kenneth Flippen]

thanks for the reply I don't mind using chemicals cattle have not been here for about 5 yrs I've had a garden the past 2 this spot grows very well my tomato plants grew big and tall enough to topple over in a 4' wire support they were close to 6'feet tall when they fell and kept growing I really would like a well manicured garden and can't seem to figure it out I think i should have sprated before I planted will it do any good to spray now? all the weeds are dead but theres some new cold weather stuff coming up?

Kenneth Flippen

 

[digitS']

The rule of thumb may be for temperatures to be at least 60F for most herbicides to be effective.

It sounds like the annual weeds have already run their course and, perhaps, their seed has germinated. I wouldn't worry much about killing that if you are already much past your 1st frost.

Just plan on taking out those weeds in the spring. With Round-up, it often takes a couple of weeks to know if they are on their way out. And, maybe another week to know if you should spray again. I use the annual weed dilution and really have to spray bindweed, for example, 2 or even 3 times. That's okay, it isn't going anywhere if it has been hit once and I can get back to kill it within a month.

If you are trying to prep actual growing beds, several weeks or a month is quite a long time to put a stop to weed growth. Warm-weather crops might be the best choice on beds where you have to put in several weeks of eradication efforts. Often, the ground will look real good early and then the weeds can even beat the radish in a race for space and sunlight.

One thing, running the weeding process over that many weeks makes mechanical weeding look all the better. If you can afford the time before putting out things like corn and tomatoes, and keep hitting those weeds for 3 or 4 weeks with a hoe or by pulling, you may not need an herbicide.

Setting out plants rather than sowing seed should also help you and your plants to rise above the competition.

Steve

 

[Kenneth Flippen]

we've had a few frost our first good one last night I guess you would call it our killing frost. it started out looking good last year I went 2 weeks with out weeding due to work and it was over I couldn't get caught back up I'll try the early spring round-up how many weeks should I spray(how long will it take for the biggest part of the seeds to germinate so I can spray them?


thanks
Kenneth Flippen

 

[digitS']

Probably a call to your Cooperative Extension agency will give you that answer, Kenneth. You should find the number in the phone book either under county government or the name of your local land-grant university.

Or, find them right here: http://www.csrees.usda.gov/Extension/

Steve