Clearing grassed area without chemicals - ideas?

[prairie hill]

We have an area about 50' by 60' that we want to completely clear of vegetation, and replant into herb and flower plots. The area is mostly weedy grass (with a lot of sandburs and puncture vine we struggle with every year). We used chemicals several times last year with little success (on the weeds) and are trying to avoid further chemical use. Any suggestions how we can get this cleared without using chemicals? Thanks for any help.

[agmantoo]

Sure, cover the area with black plastic and leave it covered for a couple of months. This will essentially sterlized the soil.

[Rockin'B]

If, by chance, you have access to a bunch of spoiled hay you can cover with a a real heavy layer of that too.

That gives the added benefit of helping the soil as it breaks down.

[Paul Wheaton]

You could till.

You could plant something that would outcompete the grass and then die.

You could plant something that would be a great green manure and then till that in.

When do you want to plant?

[indypartridge]

A portable electric fence and a horse would turn it into a 'dry lot' in just a few days.

[clovis]

Black plastic.

[prairie hill]

We are hoping to transplant into that area yet this summer - ASAP. We are having a lot of unseasonably cool weather and rain, so judging from the forecasts, we still have a window of opportunity to get this stuff moved.

Thanks for the input, folks. I'm open to every possible idea.

[prairie hill]

Might tilling, raking, and THEN putting down black plastic speed things up? Seems like it would, but have no experience with that.

[Daddymem]

If it were me, I would lay a thick layer of newspaper on top and then throw some compost/compost-ables on top of that in no-till/lasagna gardening style. You'd be ready to plant that way with minimal work.

[prairie hill]

Daddymem - this is a pretty sizable area - we don't have that much compostables! I can't figure out how else we'd keep the newspapers down in such a large are. Not to mention, the wind here would likely take whatever we put down into the next county.

[Daddymem]

You might have to scrounge a lot but this solution will provide you with killing the weeds (the newspaper) and the ability to plant today versus waiting for tarps to kill the undergrowth. We scrounged leaves and grass clippings from bags left out for the town to pick up, raking the woods, mowing empty lots, etc. Check recycling centers to see if you can get any newspapers, I know our town has a rolloff dumpster full of newspapers and magazines people can dump (and take) twice a week.

[littlebird]

Newspaper, then manure then 6" straw on top. Makes a nice soil that earthworms and red wigglers love. (they do the tilling.)

Old carpet from the dump is the best smotherer (wd?) I've ever seen. It's not likely to blow away, either. But it's ugly and you have to take it off and return it to the dump or reuse it.

You'd need to leave the carpet all season and plant next year. The manure lasagna you can plant right into after a coupla weeks.

best of luck!
LB

[Mike in Ohio]

You could also burn the ground with a propane fueled torch system.

[michiganfarmer]

Originally Posted by prairie hill

We have an area about 50' by 60' that we want to completely clear of vegetation, and replant into herb and flower plots. The area is mostly weedy grass (with a lot of sandburs and puncture vine we struggle with every year). We used chemicals several times last year with little success (on the weeds) and are trying to avoid further chemical use. Any suggestions how we can get this cleared without using chemicals? Thanks for any help.

mow or chop vegetation down to a few inches tall.

Take a round nose shovel, scoop out a hunk of sod, turn it upside down, put it back in the hole.

Repeat untill all the vegitation is burried.

[prairie hill]

Okay - again, in the interest of shortening the time, would it be a horrific bad idea to scrape the area to remove most of the vegetation, then do the other stuff? We may be able to get ahold of an 8' scraper (like what you use on a dirt road) hooked to a tractor. Continuing to mull over all the ideas presented here - I'm not ignoring anybody - just continuing to brainstorm on my end. Thanks again.

[Tricky Grama]

I just got here...I was going to say use a tractor & blade & scrape it off. Pile what you scraped into a big compost pile. If you can't do the newspaper cover, can you do a cover crop like alfalfa?

Patty

[Callieslamb]

Originally Posted by prairie hill

Okay - again, in the interest of shortening the time, would it be a horrific bad idea to scrape the area to remove most of the vegetation, then do the other stuff? We may be able to get ahold of an 8' scraper (like what you use on a dirt road) hooked to a tractor.

I removed the sod from my garden area with a sod cutter we rented but an 8 foot blade would be MUCH easier! Pile it all up to the side, wet it down, cover it with black plastic and let the sod compost. Works really well!

[Ravenlost]

I was thinking goats or pigs.

[Nel frattempo]

We are in process of doing just that now and have a large garden area we cleared in past. What we are doing now is chemical free:
-we are mowing down everything that can be mowed as low as we can get it. This is not easy in that some pampass grass is 12 feet high but we are shoving it over, mowing and will keep mowing over it.
-as we mow, till if possible and where possible
-dump wood chips, rotten straw, rotten hay, leave the green mowed matter all on the ground
-dig up the larger wood shrubs with tractor, smooth area
-keep dumping wood chips/hay/straw and till all summer and all fall
-hope for the best by next spring

LAST time we:
-did spray one time with roundup
-next we knocked down the green stalks that were left and just left them on the ground
-since we did NOT want to use any more chemicals, we began to toss paper things all over the ground, this was no easy task in that it is a very large area....about 1 acre....we used torn up cereal boxes, cracker boxes, newspaper, magazines (and yes we did use the slick paper too) and we just kept it up for about 2 months throwing everything paper that we could find on top of the ground, looked like the dickens but we had a plan! we over lapped the paper everywhere so whole places was covered
-as we covered an area, we dumped rotten wood chips over paper, then horse poop on top of that, some rotten straw, we did get one load of dirt, more poop,
-then we laid out the beds
-we deliberately did put soil, poop, straw over the whole place even the paths since the paths will rotate with the beds to become planting areas every 2nd year

Good luck.

[minnikin1]

Chickens'll kill it to bare dirt pretty quick. Put em on thick.
Then stock the freezer.