I'm gonna mow it down...

[CNCfamily]

Tilled up a new garden this year. Not sure what, exactly, i thought was going to happen, but the weeds are HORRENDOUS! I literally could weed for hours every day and never get anywhere because they triple overnight!

What's a good way to get rid of a lot of these weeds? Can i Round Up it in the fall and kill off a lot of it? and expect it not to come back next year? I really don't know what to do!

And the BUGS! What's the safest way to take care of a garden? I had little bitty black bugs totally wipe out all my broccoli in one day this week!

[oneokie]

Unless you are planning on salvaging some veggies, now would be the time to apply the roundup.

Or use mechanical methods to keep the present crop of weeds from going to seed.

[farmerDale]

One word. Mulch it. Deeply, with lots of mulch. your weed problems will all but disappear if you are careful after laying 6 or 8 inches of manure, or wood chips etc.. Whatever you do, do not till it again, just let the mulch do its job, naturally. Tillage begets weed seeds from years gone by, continuously stimulating them to germinate.

We used to fight purslane every year. Once we quit tilling, and used manure without tiling it in for nutrients, soil improvement, and weed control, our problems went away. I weed my garden once a year, and never water it. Weeding entails maybe a half hour of poking around between the rows, and the weeds pull out so very easily.

It may work for you.

Regarding glyphosate... Yes the fall is the best time to kill perennial weeds dead, but if you are fighting annuals, it will be a fight that continues forever, even using roundup.
It just depends on what weeds you have.

[westend]

Mulch or fenced in goats then mulch :-) No need for the chemicals.

[Backfourty,MI.]

We mulch heavily when we plant the garden with all the goats wasted & soiled bedding. Works great to keep the weeds down, a lot less watering & also keeps from getting the early blight that's in the soil on your plants.

We do till ours up in the fall though after pulling all the plants & start over in the spring. The tilled in mulch really amends the soil & makes it so nice. You'd never even know anything was tilled in the fall before.

[Paquebot]

At any one time, every single one of those weeds was only an inch high. Since most are probably annuals, shearing them off with a hoe would have permanently eliminated them. A 6" wide hoe drawn 24" takes care of 2 square feet. That can be accomplished in a few seconds. That's a lot easier than mowing them off when that is the only thing left. By now, many will already have formed seed heads and mowing will merely spread them around more.

But, if you ain't got any animals to eat the weeds, and truly serious about mowing, then do mow and mow the entire garden. Give up on anything which may be left and level the whole works. Pretend that it's spring and plow or till it entirely. Every 2 or 3 weeks after that, go out with a hoe and eliminate anything green. Keep it up until the snow flies and you'll have elminated 90% or more of the seeds from the present weeds. Tilling in the spring then becomes optional but be forewarned that it would bring up more seeds.

That does work. It's what we use to keep most weeds out of the garlic fields, especially since they sit fallow for 3 months. Less than 24 hours after the last garlic bulb was lifted, the fields were gone over with a heavy disk several times until there was little remaining of the few weeds which were there. When the fields begin looking a little green in another month, they will be disked again. The few remaining weed seeds may still have time to germinate after that but then they will be plowed under. In theory, we should have them almost totally eliminated in a few years of doing that.

Martin

[How Do I]

I'm with Martin. Controlling weeds when they are small is ideal. You can solarize the soil with clear plastic, but if you have plans to till with the garden tiller this fall or next spring you'll be bringing more weeds to the soil surface. As far as organic methods to for controlling bugs, it really depends on what type of little bitty black bugs they are.

[geo in mi]

Everybody fights weeds. If you are totally frustrated this year, I would recommend you mow it down and make some "starting over" plans for next year. Maybe one of your problems is that you tilled the whole garden area and then left all the soil open--which leads to annual weeds everywhere, since the seeds will germinate whenever they come up from the depths to the upper surface layer. Whatever you have growing and going to seed now is really just the tip of the iceburg when you consider all those under the surface already--so you might as well mow it down, recognizing that mowing, or burning it down with glyphosate will only give you a temporary lift...........

What to do for next year? A lot will depend on your square footage, but I would say mulch as much as possible, the tomatoes, squash, brocolli type crops, those you will have to plant into holes. Potatoes usually take a lot of hoeing and hilling, so, many times you will be able to keep out the weeds just by the normal hilling maintenance. That will leave you with the seeded crops--lettuce, spinach, beans, etc, which you will need to take Paquetbot's advice and buy a really good sharp, wide hoe, and go to it. Onions? A hoe and hand weeding usually are in order.....But if you have a lot of the square footage under mulch, you may be able to keep it all under control.

Sometimes an area or row will complete its crop, and then, all of us tend to forget about it--until the late weeds(grasses, for me) take over . No sin to use a weed whacker or lawn mower if they haven't gone to seed.... Of course, another solution would be to be till it up and plant a temproary cover crop to build the soil, AND suppress the weeds--buckwheat, oats, etc, etc. Johnny's catalog has a section of cover crop seeds that you can choose from......

So, start looking for MULCH sources now, and ask Santa for a hoe, hoe, hoe!

geo

[Cliff]

Agree with mulch! In addition to suppressing weeds mulching adds incredible fertility to the soil and holds moisture. After a year of mulching the soil will be so soft tilling will be unnecessary. It's nature's way of growing plants and it works incredibly well. Suggest if you mow your garden down now mulch it well and it will be in wonderful shape by the time you want to plant next spring.

Bugs are drawn to unhealthy plants... when you build a healthy soil your plants will be healthy and much less susceptible to bugs. There will always be a few but plants can live with a few and you can hand pick or use gentler organic methods on a few.

[jwal10]

Summer fallow. Work it up and let seeds sprout and continue in 3 week intervals until fall. Need enough moisture tosprout the seeds and then let it dry out until the next round. Add ammendments and work again. You can roundup before each tilling. Then do as Farmer Dale says above....James

[Cliff]

Originally Posted by jwal10

Summer fallow. Work it up and let seeds sprout and continue in 3 week intervals until fall. Need enough moisture tosprout the seeds and then let it dry out until the next round. Add ammendments and work again. You can roundup before each tilling. Then do as Farmer Dale says above....James

If you do what Farmer Dale said first, you can eliminate all this work. Unless you just like doing the extra work Old habits die hard I guess.

I'd never use roundup in my garden....

[Paquebot]

Problem with mulch is that it's often not available in quantities needed to effectively cover a large garden or last long enough to be effective for the entire season. Leaves are great but are designed to break down within a few months. Same goes for some types of straw. Only wood lasts the season whereupon it them becomes a problem of its own. Cover crops look good on paper except that I have yet to see one which does not allow a few weeds to mature and add more seeds to those already dormant. Mowing and tilling now will disrupt anything currently growing. Repeat killing whatever germinates every few weeks and by whatever means chosen will severely reduce any potential weed growth next year. And if the final attack is a proper tilling, the soil is ready to plant in next spring and without the weeds which were killed the fall before.

I'll cite another example of how I use that. Early potatoes are now gone from my permanent potato patch. Weeds are generally not a problem other than lemon balm, ground cherries, dill, oregano, walking onions, garlic, and other permanent resident good guys that reseed or move in. Same day that the last potatoes came out was when prepping for next spring began. With not enough rain to allow the oat straw and oak leaves to break down, much remained, especially the whole white oak leaves. Went through with the Mantis and tore everything up good to mix the organic matter with the soil. It will be gone through again this fall for final prep for a March 2013 planting. Nothing unwanted will have a chance to produce seed.

Martin

[Cliff]

When you consider how much mulch saves you on water, fertilizer, time and effort over the growing season, equipment (tiller) and fuel, maintenance, etc for the equipment and how much it improves soil quality with no more work than just laying it on the soil, it is well worth buying if needed. But I'm sure most anybody could arrange for a tree service to dump chipped up tree waste at their place with a few phone calls. Left over mulch after the growing season doesn't cause any problems, it just sits and continues to decompose and improve the soil. Keeping the soil continuously mulched is the goal anyway so the longer it lasts the better.

I like to figure out ways to work with nature, not fight it. Mulching is an almost perfect gardening method imo. It mimics the way nature grows plants and it's very sustainable. It creates very healthy, living soil. You could easily successfully grow food with no modern inputs using mulching. It'd be a little more work if you had to collect the stuff by hand but you could still do it more easily than trying to hand dig, weed, and carry water to a large garden. Not to mention trying to figure out how to fertilize. Mulching solves all those problems.

[farmerDale]

I guess when we mean mulch, we mean a yearly addition after the initial mulch of say 8-10 inches. You keep adding, building on the base. I hear you though Martin, on the availability, not everyone has economical, readily accessible mulch material. Very true.

I just switched my garden from wide bed to American Intensive. Which means no more hand digging. Beds are 7 foot wide and the centers can be reached from both sides with a long handled shuffle hoe.
We tilled the bed and layed a peice of ply wood across the bed so we could plant them. Plants are spaced so the I can use the hoe to clean the bed up in about 5-8 minutes each.
It took dh and i about 1/2 hour to 45 minutes to plant 98 brocolli plants in one of the 7x20 foot beds. So far all but one is doing ok.

We can't seem to get enough mulch for our garden. So I use what I can get for wintering the asparagus and our garlic. i have found that too little mulch just allows the weeds to come through and them makes it hard to deal with them, by hand or hoe.

[Callieslamb]

Knowing I was going to be gone for a couple of weeks, I mulched my garden very heavily with straw. It took 15 bales to go 6 inches deep. However, the weeds I am struggling with now are the ones that came up through the straw. They got missed by the hired help and now are big enough to make me sigh when I look at them. I have cut the tops off of all of them andI will take out a shovel and dig them up next. However, I'm also moving that mulch to the side a bit so I can dig and then till. Maybe I"ll move it back and maybe I won't. I haven't been impressed with straw for mulch this year. I'm sure it helped keep the moisture in the ground but I think it gave a place for the weeds to get started where they weren't noticed as much. The weeds are not from seeds in the straw. It's lamb's quarter and perhaps pigsqueak.

[Paquebot]

Everyone remember, this is new ground. That usually means about zero organic matter. Anything which may be tilled in now, even if it's weed stubble, is a help to correcting that potential problem. No till, deep mulch, or any other method is useless if there's nothing in the soil that the plants can use. Organic matter doesn't magically break down and go 8" deep in one or ten years. If it's wanted there within the next decade, it has to be put there. If the OP wants to have a decent garden next year, and somewhat fertile and relatively free of weeds, the time to start is now. Otherwise, next year will just be a repeat of this year but after a lot of added but fruitless effort and costs.

Martin

[Cliff]

Originally Posted by Callieslamb

Knowing I was going to be gone for a couple of weeks, I mulched my garden very heavily with straw. It took 15 bales to go 6 inches deep. However, the weeds I am struggling with now are the ones that came up through the straw. They got missed by the hired help and now are big enough to make me sigh when I look at them. I have cut the tops off of all of them andI will take out a shovel and dig them up next. However, I'm also moving that mulch to the side a bit so I can dig and then till. Maybe I"ll move it back and maybe I won't. I haven't been impressed with straw for mulch this year. I'm sure it helped keep the moisture in the ground but I think it gave a place for the weeds to get started where they weren't noticed as much. The weeds are not from seeds in the straw. It's lamb's quarter and perhaps pigsqueak.

You haven't left it long enough for it to break down and improve your soil. Not a fair trial really. The weeds should be easy to pull by hand with it mulched. Those kinds of weeds usually won't come through mulch though, that's odd

One thing i have found to help is to have lots of quick crops on the weediest part of the garden. So you can harvest and clean the beds alot in one season. This works best if you harvest whole rows/beds of crops all at once for canning.

[Cliff]

Originally Posted by Paquebot

Everyone remember, this is new ground. That usually means about zero organic matter. Anything which may be tilled in now, even if it's weed stubble, is a help to correcting that potential problem. No till, deep mulch, or any other method is useless if there's nothing in the soil that the plants can use. Organic matter doesn't magically break down and go 8" deep in one or ten years. If it's wanted there within the next decade, it has to be put there. If the OP wants to have a decent garden next year, and somewhat fertile and relatively free of weeds, the time to start is now. Otherwise, next year will just be a repeat of this year but after a lot of added but fruitless effort and costs.

Martin

You'd be surprised how fast organic matter builds in the soil when it's deep mulched on a continuous basis. Distributing the organic matter is what soil life does - all those millions of earthworms that show up after soil is mulched that won't live in a bare dirt garden. They eat and burrow and poop 24/7. That's why I suggested the op deep mulch it now. By next spring it would be in good shape to plant.

Originally Posted by Cliff

You'd be surprised how fast organic matter builds in the soil when it's deep mulched on a continuous basis. Distributing the organic matter is what soil life does - all those millions of earthworms that show up after soil is mulched that won't live in a bare dirt garden. They eat and burrow and poop 24/7. That's why I suggested the op deep mulch it now. By next spring it would be in good shape to plant.

If the micro herd can handle it, other wise it can drain the soil for awhile.

I would cover it with manure and or compost till it several times. Then cover with mulch for the winter. But i might still till it twice more in the spring. Then add more mulch when the ground warms in early may. But that is here in the PNW.

[Danaus29]

I found that with most mulches you need a really thick layer or something solid underneath. That's why I switched to cardboard covered with grass clippings this year. No weeds where the cardboard is, but since we had a long dry spell there were no grass clippings or weeds to lay over the cardboard. So only a small part of the garden has been weeded and mulched. I hope the weather breaks so I can pull or cut down the pigweed before they become trees.

[Paquebot]

Originally Posted by Cliff

You'd be surprised how fast organic matter builds in the soil when it's deep mulched on a continuous basis. Distributing the organic matter is what soil life does - all those millions of earthworms that show up after soil is mulched that won't live in a bare dirt garden. They eat and burrow and poop 24/7. That's why I suggested the op deep mulch it now. By next spring it would be in good shape to plant.

You are assuming that there are earthworms there and also forgetting all that you've ever learned about earthworms here. Epigeic types never burrow but remain on top of the ground. Endogeic consume organic matter which is only found within the soil. Anecic types both eat and defficate on top of the soil. None of those types take organic matter from the surface and deposit it below the surface.

Martin

[Paquebot]

Originally Posted by Cliff

You haven't left it long enough for it to break down and improve your soil. Not a fair trial really. The weeds should be easy to pull by hand with it mulched. Those kinds of weeds usually won't come through mulch though, that's odd

Lambs quarters is the worse in our fields and came up through 4" to 6" of straw mulch this year. When young and the soil was loose and damp, it was easily pulled. When more established, it had to be cut off with a pruning shears. The presence of all of the straw made it almost impossible to hoe them off.

The straw did prevent the germination of pigweed amaranth and the periodic disking has almost eliminated it as a nuisance weed. There are some which have germinated in the past week but they will never reach the stage of setting seed.

Martin

[Cliff]

Originally Posted by Paquebot

You are assuming that there are earthworms there and also forgetting all that you've ever learned about earthworms here. Epigeic types never burrow but remain on top of the ground. Endogeic consume organic matter which is only found within the soil. Anecic types both eat and defficate on top of the soil. None of those types take organic matter from the surface and deposit it below the surface.

Martin

I don't know anything about earthworms like that lol. All I know is they show up and in a couple years I can bury my hands up to the forearms in the previously hard soil

[Cliff]

Originally Posted by Paquebot

Lambs quarters is the worse in our fields and came up through 4" to 6" of straw mulch this year. When young and the soil was loose and damp, it was easily pulled. When more established, it had to be cut off with a pruning shears. The presence of all of the straw made it almost impossible to hoe them off.

The straw did prevent the germination of pigweed amaranth and the periodic disking has almost eliminated it as a nuisance weed. There are some which have germinated in the past week but they will never reach the stage of setting seed.

Martin

Lambsquarter and pigweed are deterred here by mulch but there's the ever present johnson grass and dock that come through anything. Also in one garden bermuda grass is becoming a problem. Mulch slows that one down but eventually it makes its way to the surface. Kinda stymied on how to deal with that one.

[Cliff]

Originally Posted by Danaus29

I found that with most mulches you need a really thick layer or something solid underneath. That's why I switched to cardboard covered with grass clippings this year. No weeds where the cardboard is, but since we had a long dry spell there were no grass clippings or weeds to lay over the cardboard. So only a small part of the garden has been weeded and mulched. I hope the weather breaks so I can pull or cut down the pigweed before they become trees.

We had some places where we'd laid cardboard down early in the spring but not planted yet. I moved it and the soil was really dry underneath, I wasn't happy with it, don't know how anything planted in it can get enough moisture?

[Paquebot]

Originally Posted by Cliff

I don't know anything about earthworms like that lol. All I know is they show up and in a couple years I can bury my hands up to the forearms in the previously hard soil

In Idaho, there are no epigeic types since they can't survive the winters. There are also few places there with anecic types. Leaves only the endogeic types and they will remain in an area only as long as there is sufficient organic matter in the soil for them to eat. When there is nothing more for them to eat within the soil, they either die of starvation or move. By the way, none of those types are native to Idaho.

Without tilling organic matter into soil, it will never reach more than the top 5 or 6 inches even in loose soils. Next time you are driving around, look for any place where there is excavation going on prior to building or roads. Look to see how deep the topsoil is. After thousands of years of a forest contributing leaf mulch annually, there still may only be a few inches of topsoil. And when one considers that the feeder root zones of most vegetables is around 6", even planting in a freshly-cleared forest would not guarantee giving even fair results.

Martin

[farmerDale]

Originally Posted by Paquebot

Everyone remember, this is new ground. That usually means about zero organic matter. Anything which may be tilled in now, even if it's weed stubble, is a help to correcting that potential problem. No till, deep mulch, or any other method is useless if there's nothing in the soil that the plants can use. Organic matter doesn't magically break down and go 8" deep in one or ten years. If it's wanted there within the next decade, it has to be put there. If the OP wants to have a decent garden next year, and somewhat fertile and relatively free of weeds, the time to start is now. Otherwise, next year will just be a repeat of this year but after a lot of added but fruitless effort and costs.

Martin

If I were to break a new garden here, the om would certainly be WAY higher than long term tilled soil, may be a "here" thing. You mention there is nothing in the soil the plants can use, yet the op states clearly the weeds have taken over massively. Therefore, IMO, it would seem the soil is well capable of growing plant matter. I also would mention that on my farm under zero tillage, the om goes up over time, without tillage, from the crop residue not being rapidly broken down by the aeration of tillage. As well, organic matter builds relatively quickly on soils that have been in perennial cover for a reasonable period of time.
Last year, I seeded a new piece of land I bought, that was in grass for almost thirty years. With no tillage, this soil had almost 3 full percent more organic matter than the adjacent field which was tillage farmed. It is mellow beyond belief, and will stay that way as long as I am not tilling it, and breaking apart the root mass, and the beautiful natural built up structure. Just a little background as to where I get my ideas from.

The thing is, this grassland was not tilled for thirty years. How did the om increase so well? Well, it is because tillage allows air into the soil, and it is like a fire which burns up organic matter, mineralizing nutrients, henceforth making it seem more fertile. As well, plant roots often are half of the entire plant matter produced. Along with the litter on top, and the massive undisturbed root structures below the surface, the om increases. The exact same thing happens in gardens, aside from the root crops that are removed, but in that case, the tops are still generally left behind.... My point is, you do not have to physically place the material into the mineral soil to be effective.

You cannot put 8 inches of mulch on top, and expect immediate results. But by year two, the soil will have mellowed a lot. I guess my point is not that you are wrong, but that there are more than one way to make a garden grow. Tillage is one, mulching and not tilling is another.

To the op, do as you wish, that is the beauty of these forums, bringing several experiences to the forefront...

i went back to tilling because the weed growth competed too much with the crops. Not sure it would matter if you were just growing grass as compared to veg.

The way i see it you have 2 options, use a tiller and plan on tilling quite a few times to bring up the seeds and sprout them. Or till a couple of times and use a hoe or mulch leaving the weed seeds down deep so they don't sprout.
Either way you have to get the weed seeds that are allowed to sprout down to a manageble amount, so the weeds aren't getting ahead of you and producing more and more seeds.
I tryed what they called a false seed bed and it didn't work with the chick weed plants I have that have over taken my garden. So I will be tilling and hoeing my garden many times till I can get it under control.