Planting new seeds among weeds

[vicky464]

Does anyone have a suggestion? I seem to have a lot of weeds this year, so I just ran out and got 2 bales of salt hay/unseeded hay, and laid it out on my garden as a mulch. This always worked well for me.

Now, I would love to plant some late summer/fall seeds in the next week or two. I am afraid if I pull back the mulch and plant the seeds, as the weeds will spring up again with the lettuce seeds. I was thinking of pulling back the mulch, laying a layer of topsoil/compost on top of the seedy soil and planting in that. What do you think?

Thanks for any replies!

[jal_ut]

Are you a "NO TILL" gardener? If so, perhaps what you suggest is best. You did not give us a clue what your soil is like.

For me the best way to get rid of the weeds is water the area and germinate the weeds, then till.

You could till in the hay and plant, or rake the hay back, till then plant and later put the hay back on.

Please remember that hay has its own compliment of weed seeds. No such thing as a weed free hay field.

Weeds are a fact of life to the gardener. Here the irrigation water has weed seeds in it. They come on the wind too. You plant then weed, then weed, then weed some more.
Have fun !

[valley]

jal_ut, Yep that sounds like the way of the weed.

You can start your plants first, than plant them where you want them and they'll have a jump on the weeds, but as jal_ut has mentioned, you'll do some weeding too.

Richard

[vicky464]

I love my tiller, but I think it is part of the problem. Whenever I till I tend to get more seeds, so I am thinking there are dormant in the soil. Right now, 2 weeks after laying the mulch, weeds are growing through a fairly thick layer of mulch.

I am in NY, Zone 5, and the soil is good, but may be low in nutrients. The plot is 25' x 8'. It is well draining.