From Weeds to Vegetable Garden

[natira]

I am brand-spanking new to gardening of any kind. We have a 6'x21' plot on the south side of our house which has been overrun by weeds for over ten years. We tried planting some veggies last year, but he weeds were relentless and we didn't get any produce for the effort.

Is there something I can use to knock off all those nasty weeds now, at the beginning of April, and still be able to plant some veggies in May?

Thanks for your help!

Minneapolis, MN

[GardenJester]

you could try water the weeds, get them to sprout then till them under before you plant in your garden. you can also try put down some kind of weed barriers(mulch, or fabric) after you tilled the weeds under. Rent a tiller might make the work lot easier.

[rainbowgardener]

You can solarize it: put down a layer of clear plastic, buried all around the edges so it is tight. Let it sit for a few sunny weeks and it cooks all the weeds. Or you can chop them down, water well, put thick layers of newspaper or cardboard over it, water again, lay a couple inches or so of topsoil over that and plant. If you are transplanting things into it (not planting seeds) you would have to cut holes in the cardboard for them. The cardboard/ newspaper will suppress the weeds and then rot away.

But whatever you do, mulch is your friend. After you have the bed cleared (the old fashioned way would just be to hoe it, 6X21 is manageable for that) and planted and the plants have sprouted a few inches, weed it out again (yes the weeds WILL be coming back, it is in their nature), then lay down several inches of mulch - straw, grass clippings, wood chips, leaves, coffee grounds, sawdust, or some mixture of all of these, or anything else organic you have on hand. It will slowly break down and feed your soil, but in the meantime it keeps the weeds from coming back.

[TZ -OH6]

For a brand new garden a useful method would be to till and plant then put down newspaper 2-3 sheets thick and cover with pats/bale flakes of straw rather than shaking loose the straw. This will smother weeds and provide a large end-of-season compost pile for next year, or you could leave it in place and not til next year.

[Greywolf]

Whichever method is used - I have also heard that at the end of the year (once the veggies are dying out anyway) it's a good time to blast the daylights out of the plot with Herbicide.

I know - it's chemical warfare, non-organic, and all that. BUT:

Anyone who has ever had to deal with Johnson grass, Clover, Poison Oak, Foxtails, and a long list of other nasties I can think of off the top of my head would probably waive the geneva convention as far as weeds are concerned in the blink of an eye!

The best NON-CHEMICAL means I can think of is just plain covering the surface with one of the above ways at least for several seasons in a row. Two or three ought to do the trick, if the SOURCE of the weed seeds is not still going full blast somewhere nearby (especially upwind). HAYFIELDS are notoriously bad news for a gardener...

The longer a garden is established, the more weed-free it becomes.

[jal_ut]

It depends on what kind of weeds you have. If it is bindweed or Johnson grass or Canadian thistle, it is a job to get rid of that stuff. If it is just annual weeds, no problem. With your shovel or digging fork dig the plot up and remove any weeds and roots thereof. Smooth it up with a rake and wait ten days. You will see a bunch of small weeds coming up. Take your hoe and Hoe,Hoe,Hoe. In fact a rake will dusrupt those small seedling weeds. Now you can plant and you will get some more weeds, but not as many. Keep that hoe handy. Anything you can't hoe out, pull them by hand. It just takes a commitment. A plot of that size is easy to keep weed free. You won't even get a sweat up. Hoe,Hoe, Hoe.

[hay]

Get some roundup and mix according to label directions and spray the area well. Wait about three weeks and spray once more to get those really 'toughies'. Roundup does not hurt the soil or pre-sprouted plants, only that which is actively growing. Till when the area is dead of weeds and then proceed to make garden. This is the fastest and least laborious method. Once with roundup to get the ground in shape and then YOU can keep it in shape forever.

[rainbowgardener]

Roundup does not hurt the soil or pre-sprouted plants, only that which is actively growing. .

Round up is considered less harmful than some herbicides, because it does not persist in the soil for very long. I don't know what that means about not hurting pre-sprouted plants. Round up kills any plant it touches (with the possible exception of some genetically modified plants that have been designed to resist it).

Because Round up is not persistent in the soil, that doesn't mean it is safe in the environment or safe for people to use. It is harmful to earthworms and then it (and/or its also toxic breakdown products) wash into the water ways where it is harmful to aquatic life.

Here is a long thread with extensive debate pro and con about Round up. If you are going to use it (and I will admit that I still do occasionally put a bit of glyphosate [active ingredient in Roundup] on the poison ivy, which is difficult to eradicate any other way and would make it impossible for me to work in my garden if I didn't do something about it) you should at least know what you are doing:

https://www.helpfulgardener.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=7787&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=roundup&start=15