HelpfulGardener.com

Hi!

I read through all the threads to figure out a good way to get rid of all the weeds in my garden. I think I'll do newspaper and compost on top since I have a lot of open spaces this year.

But can anyone tell me what these are? I have huge patches of them...some type of grass?

Thanks!

some kind of grassy weed, maybe crab grass or goose grass.

So anything special I need to do or can I just pull and proceed with the whole newspaper thing?

If you are thorough about the newspaper (or better cardboard) with compost and soil on top, you don't need to pull the grass. I have turned lawn in to flower gardens, just by piling cardboard and soil on top of the grass, which smothers it.

I have these same weeds on my grass that I was trying to take it off

Cardboard will work. If you don't plant anything and leave bare soil, weeds will come back. Either heavily mulch to block out light afterwards or plant something to cover the ground.

If you have more weeds than grass and the grass is over 7 years old, it might be time to renovate. There are some selective herbicides for grassy weeds but you do have to identify the weed first. If you use herbicides then, don't compost the grass clippings for at least a year. If there are not that many or only a few patches it would be better to pull or dig out the patches.

https://aggieturf.tamu.edu/turfgrass-weeds/
https://extension.umd.edu/hgic/lawns/la ... tification