Community garden help
I have a 20*50 plot that I rent out. Before I got it last year it had never been taken care of. The soil is good , maybe too good. My problem is the weeds and grass grow faster than my plants and the choke them out. Is there a way get rid of the weeds ahead of time? I looked at using a pre-emergent 6 weeks before I put my plants in. My thought was it would slow down the weeds enough that I could keep up with the weeding later on. I have heard that by constantly tilling the ground it stops grass/weeds but I also heard it takes the water out of the ground. Any suggestions to get rid of 80-90% of the grass/weeds so I can keep ahead of the occasional weeds/
My best advise is to employ a mulching program. In my garden which was weed choked before it was a garden, after tilling I put down a newsprint layer....actually three layers thick and then spread about 6-8 inches of weed free straw. The paper is a weed barrier and the straw is a barrier but also keeps the soil cooler in the summer heat. This system allows water to go through and knocks down weed growth.
Paper/straw then can be incorporated into the soil at the end of the year to provide organics. It did take a couple of years to eliminate a big proportion of the weed growth but around 90% of the weeds are gone after three years.
Other mulching systems would also work. Some use weed fabric as a base, some use other methods. Solarization (plastic layer put down and allow the soil to heat up and kill weed seeds) will kill lots of weeds but also lots of helpful bugs. Some use plastic sheeting as a mulch but that does not allow water to flow through and can heat the soil during the summer months.
So long story short....mulch.
Paper/straw then can be incorporated into the soil at the end of the year to provide organics. It did take a couple of years to eliminate a big proportion of the weed growth but around 90% of the weeds are gone after three years.
Other mulching systems would also work. Some use weed fabric as a base, some use other methods. Solarization (plastic layer put down and allow the soil to heat up and kill weed seeds) will kill lots of weeds but also lots of helpful bugs. Some use plastic sheeting as a mulch but that does not allow water to flow through and can heat the soil during the summer months.
So long story short....mulch.
Community gardens usually have rules that do not allow the use of herbicides so other methods do have to be employed. Hand weeding and tilling are your options as well as keeping the ground covered with either plants or mulch as Paul suggested.
How hard the weeds are to get rid of depends on the weed and where you live. If you live in a northern climate where there is snow, winter kills a lot of the weeds for you, but in a frost free zone, it is weed paradise. You just have to garden regularly and keep after the weeds. Some perennial weeds are hard to kill without resorting to herbicides like nut sedge and bind weed. They are difficult to kill even with solarization because of their deep roots and nuts. It may take years to get them under control and still not be eliminated. I got some of my worst weeds from the mulch, so it is important to get weed free mulch. The others have blown in from other parcels and from the birds.
I have used old carpets and 3mm thick painter's plastic sheets with some temporary success. After I weeded part of the garden I would cover it with either the carpet scrap or plastic sheet while I worked on clearing another section. It was the only way I could stay ahead of it since I could not spend too many hours or days in the garden. I even hired someone to clean the garden for me. He weed whacked the taller weeds, but it still had to be covered and hand pulled because it only looked nice for a little while because weed whacking does not get the roots out. Weed whacking and covering help control the annual weeds a lot faster and bought me time where I could work on just one section at a time to clear and plant it. I can only go to my garden a couple of times a week. Some people go everyday and spend nearly all day there. Without doing that, it seemed like I was pulling the same weeds in the same spot everytime and wasn't making much progress.
I do have a gardening friend who helps me out and helps me clear the garden of weeds and he has a truck which can hold much more than my little car can so we can haul more weeds to the dump that way. I tried piling the weeds in the garden or bagging them a day or two ahead but the water in the weeds made the bags heavier and the ants would get in and I did not want the ants all over my car. The kinds of weeds I have can survive composting, so I don't use them for that. I spend about three hours a day twice a week at the garden, mostly pulling weeds. My community plot is approx 19x 40. I have installed a sprinkler system and I have modified it into sections so it is possible to work on one section and irrigate the others at the same time. Before, I did that, I had to turn on the sprinkler and wait in my car until the time was up to turn it off and it watered the entire garden. Timers are not allowed in the garden because unattended watering is not allowed to curb abuse.
How hard the weeds are to get rid of depends on the weed and where you live. If you live in a northern climate where there is snow, winter kills a lot of the weeds for you, but in a frost free zone, it is weed paradise. You just have to garden regularly and keep after the weeds. Some perennial weeds are hard to kill without resorting to herbicides like nut sedge and bind weed. They are difficult to kill even with solarization because of their deep roots and nuts. It may take years to get them under control and still not be eliminated. I got some of my worst weeds from the mulch, so it is important to get weed free mulch. The others have blown in from other parcels and from the birds.
I have used old carpets and 3mm thick painter's plastic sheets with some temporary success. After I weeded part of the garden I would cover it with either the carpet scrap or plastic sheet while I worked on clearing another section. It was the only way I could stay ahead of it since I could not spend too many hours or days in the garden. I even hired someone to clean the garden for me. He weed whacked the taller weeds, but it still had to be covered and hand pulled because it only looked nice for a little while because weed whacking does not get the roots out. Weed whacking and covering help control the annual weeds a lot faster and bought me time where I could work on just one section at a time to clear and plant it. I can only go to my garden a couple of times a week. Some people go everyday and spend nearly all day there. Without doing that, it seemed like I was pulling the same weeds in the same spot everytime and wasn't making much progress.
I do have a gardening friend who helps me out and helps me clear the garden of weeds and he has a truck which can hold much more than my little car can so we can haul more weeds to the dump that way. I tried piling the weeds in the garden or bagging them a day or two ahead but the water in the weeds made the bags heavier and the ants would get in and I did not want the ants all over my car. The kinds of weeds I have can survive composting, so I don't use them for that. I spend about three hours a day twice a week at the garden, mostly pulling weeds. My community plot is approx 19x 40. I have installed a sprinkler system and I have modified it into sections so it is possible to work on one section and irrigate the others at the same time. Before, I did that, I had to turn on the sprinkler and wait in my car until the time was up to turn it off and it watered the entire garden. Timers are not allowed in the garden because unattended watering is not allowed to curb abuse.
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jal_ut
- Super Green Thumb
- Posts: 7447
- Joined: Sun Jan 18, 2009 10:20 pm
- Location: Northern Utah Zone 5
Depends some on the type of weeds and grass. Some plants if you cut off the top the root dies, But with other grasses and weeds the roots won't give up. you can cut the plant off, but the root will send up another shoot, or a dozen. Yes, repeated tilling will kill them if you don't let them get too much green, the roots will eventually lose strength and die. Or, if you can actually remove these tough roots from the garden to the trash can it helps.
If the green is from seeds that have just germinated a shallow tilling should get them easily. Hoe, hoe, hoe!
If the green is from seeds that have just germinated a shallow tilling should get them easily. Hoe, hoe, hoe!