Reclaim flower bed from Chickweed?

[dchid]

Hi! I'm dchid in South central Alaska
We had a nice wild flower garden in this area last year, and tried again this year, but got about 99 percent chick weed. I thought I caught it before it went to seed. I removed all vegetation, tilled the area and then turing with a fork and picking the weeds out about every 3rd day. It seems to be a futile effort, I get the same amount of weeds each time.
Had very little chick weed there last year.
My hope is to have it cleaned up for next season.
Any ideas will be Welcome.
Thanks
dchid

[rainbowgardener]

If you have nothing much left there you want to save, then I would just smother it: Wet everything down. Lay down a couple layers of cardboard on top of that and wet thoroughly. Cover the cardboard with organic stuff -- some mixture of topsoil, fall leaves, straw, grass clippings, pulled weeds, shredded paper, or whatever you have. Mixture is better than all one thing. Since you are going in to winter (right?), just leave it. By spring the cardboard will be all broken down and you will have a beautiful, deep, weed-free bed.

(Of course nature abhors a vacuum and nothing ever stays weed free! )

[dchid]

Thanks!
I wonder if black plastic would work? I don"t have access to a lot of cardboard.

[imafan26]

You have to use thick plastic or it will start to come apart. Put several layers of newpaper under the plastic just in case and mulch on top of the plastic to keep it in place.

Chickweed is hard to get rid of, if you leave a segment, it regrows and it reseeds easily. The seeds get stuck to your clothing and or on animals and it can spread elsewhere. I have even had the seeds survive after laundering. Now, I have to pick off the seed pods by hand or with tape before I wash the clothes and even that is not guarantee.

[dchid]

Thank you! I'll give it a try.
I blame the wildflower seeds for getting it started, not sure I'm being fair about that.