Can anything stop quack grass?
 

You know, the stuff that spreads via thick runner roots? I think I've resigned myself to the fact that I will never never never have a garden free of quack grass. Which is tolerable in the portions I dig each spring to plant things. The asparagus and strawberry beds are a mess.

But I'm particularly concerned about areas around the house. There were flowers around the majority of the house perimeter when we moved in 7 years ago. I've been unable to keep it up. My bleeding hearts are barely peaking out from behind the grass right now. DH talks about putting down landscape fabric & then rock, but I really am doubtful that landscape fabric's going to stop this stuff. Maybe there's an industrial strength version that will work? Of course given the square footage, we might be looking at having to take out a loan.:stars: I generally keep a positive attitude about things, (you can't garden without optimism, IMHO) but this quack grass is wearing me down.

Oh, I generally avoid the use of chemicals.

Herbicides: There are grass killers that don't hurt broadleaves that will work on it.

Glyphosate (Roundup is one) will kill anything green if you want to start over.

If you use these, do _not_ work up the area. Leave the roots whole & connected to each other. Glyphosate especially relocates itself into the root & kills from the bottom up - so you do not want to prune any rots before application!

Otherwise, the roots need to use up all their energy & never get any nutrients. That means keep it black for pretty much a whole summer. Any of it greens up on the surface, & it feeds the roots right away again. This is not an easy thing. It takes dedication.

Smoothering it with black plastic - again for a loooong time - also works.

The roots will resprout, and they store a lot of energy so it takes a long time for those roots to die. Any look at the sun, and they re-energize themselves.

Best way if you want to spray is a strong shot of glyphosate when the grass is growing well, wait 3 weeks, repeat, and 98% of the stiff will be gone. _No_ tillage in between, don't cut up the roots, you want thewm to die from the spray. Need to be connected for that.

--->Paul

didjano?


It is not easy to find an Elymus repens enthusiast amongst gardeners as it has a bad reputation as an invasive and persistent perennial weed; in the past, however, Elymus repens was widely used as an herbal remedy to treat disorders of the kidneys and urinary tract such as cystitis and urethritis (infection and inflammation of the urethra).

Clinical studies
Scientific studies have shown that Elymus repens has diuretic and sedative effects in rats and mice, but there is a lack of clinical research assessing the medical effects of Elymus repens in humans. The Council of Europe classifies it as suitable for addition to foodstuffs in small quantities; indeed the French still do regularly make a tisane of Elymus repens root. In the past the dried, ground roots of Elymus repens have been added to bread dough, and it is still used today as fodder for livestock.

(read more of the article on the link)


http://www.gardenguides.com/864-quackgrass-weed.html
http://www.drugs.com/npp/couch-grass.html

I've killed it by laying down a heavy duty tarp over the ground for a year(or at least over the winter, but a year is better). You can put mulch on top to mask the tarp, and then plant flowers in a few big pots to make it pretty.

My neighbor planted a cover crop of clover in his garden last winter and then tilled it in and it has really cut back that $%^&* weed. lol
He will do it again this year and we are doing it at my mom's rental garden area as well. If it works well, we are going to just cut up the surface of the front yard and sow the clover there too until we can smother it out.

i have been digging it out by digging up the entire bed..and replanting..hurt back doing it.

roundup will work, but you have to reapply it as it won't completely kill it with one application..

you can put it on with a sponge brush to save your plants..but if you get it on your plants..then they will die

they say a heavy enough mulch or constant hoeing will weaken the roots so they might die..i'll beleive it when i see it

Ugggh, I hate that quackgrass stuff....this year, I am going to make sure I stay on top of edging the bed perimeters. Then, I should only have to work on the &^%% quackgrass that's Inside the beds....

I hate that stuff!

As a kid one year we made a feedlot for the cows and the next year used part of that as the garden. It was quack free. Heavy grazing and hoof action cleared it up. Plus it was well fertilized.

I agree with sammyd on this. The easiest and cheapest way to get rid of it is to over-graze the heck out of it.

I had a bit of success just mulching - heavily. It didn't entirely kill it but what did come up was much easier to pull out roots and all.

I have also flooded an area where it is growing - that makes it alot easier to get the roots up too.

Otherwise - round-up is your friend.

I remember my Dad (in MN) spending hours on his knee's pulling that stuff out - imagine my suprise when I moved south and found out that stuff WAS grass, and its the most common grass in the deep south.

How deep is your edging? For a while I had mad ideas of buying cookie sheets & using them as edging, but then I wondered if the grass would just send roots down until it finally found the bottom of the sheets. I've found some roots a good 6 or more inches down, although a cookie sheet the long way down might have hope. :D

Well, I'll have to give some thought to the clover & roundup. (no one heard me say that about the roundup.) No cow here, I'm afraid. I'm in my 2nd season of Ruth Stout mulch gardening in my veggie garden. She had "witch" grass as she called it. She talked about spending a summer digging out a garden. I don't have the time. She also talked about trenches around her beds. Don't recall if she did it or was musing. But with a toddler, trenches are out, at least for now. Besides, the neighbors already think I'm off-kilter for not tilling. Anyway, there was some talk in a book of hers about mulching quack grass to death. But then how do I grow anything like carrots or lettuce? Can't cover the area with thick hay. But as far as the areas around the house, maybe I could tolerate using roundup there, so we'll have to talk about that. I appreciate your ideas & some sympathy.

I don't have actual edging, mostly because I have 2 huge veggie gardens, one smaller one, then all the flowerbeds.

I am Determined that this year I will edge with my spade around all the gardens every 2 weeks. I at least want the stuff to stop creeping in from the edges. Then it May be easier to get the stuff inside the beds.

I had good results with growing buckwheat last year...it grows so fast it provides shade so the quackgrass is somewhat held in check.

But...I couldn't keep up with it, health wise and so of course come Fall, it started creeping back in. I have tried mulching with paper feed bags, black pastic, etc. None of that worked for me.

I won't use Round up, all naturally grown veggies here....about the only thing I dislike more than Quackgrass is....Monsanto!

We have had some success (on paths) with scorching the grass down with a "fire dragon" then laying heavy feed sacks over the area, covered by old hay. We have added more hay as it settled, and it doesn't look *too* bad. You could do this on the areas you want to garden next year, taking up the hay and sacks when you need the space

Mary

Hmm...edging with a spade, that's something to consider. That wouldn't take that much time. Maybe I could even insert cardboard in there. While it won't stop the grass, it would slow it down & I could come back every week or two & re-spade/re-cardboard. (And it's basically free, a wonderful trait.) Hmm, you've got my brain turning. Today I also thought that, while I've had the grass grow through carpet remmants, if I lay remnants that are several feet wide around the perimeter of the garden, it, too, would at least slow things down. I don't care if it's ugly. That would work similar to the heavy feed sacks, I expect. The grass has encroached into the garden so badly that there's no real edge to the bed. Awful. Yes, indeed, these ideas really have me thinking. Thank you so much!

i just finished reading a permaculture book called Gaia's Garden..and even Toby Hemenway said that sometimes you have to resort to herbicides..but just once you are done with them you need to try to go natural on what you are doing after that..switch over to heavy mulch once you have killed it off..

or he also says tilling is ok if you have to, but stop and do no till after you get established.

they realize some things are just impossible for the average human to deal with

Triox, will kill it for up to a year. Spray on just like Round up. Good for arround fence posts ect. No chemicals near the food here eather.

Finally getting back to this. Funny, I happened to reserve Gaia's Garden at the library yesterday. I'm especially looking forward to reading it now.

I haven't heard of Triox. I'll check it out. Thanks!

I like quack grass.

It makes a wonderfull lawn that doesnt need watering, or fertilizer. If we have a drought and it looks like the grass died, as soon as it rains, that stuff comes right back.

Its fantastic pasture, and fantastic for stopping erosion.

i have found this spring that where I have a really heavy mulch, or even a coarse mulch of wood chips, the quackgrass comes out in large clumps with little pulling, where the mulch is less or non existant..then it just breaks off when you pull it. Also I have found that the thicker the good plants are, the less quackgrass.

I like quack grass just fine except in my garden. I was always told to get rid of it you till it up and use a cover crop of buckwheat. I've been told that buckwheat and quack grass "don't get along".

Mike

I've recently read the 'buckwheat theory' in The Experts Book of Garden Hints by Rodale~~

The small article said to remove everything you want to save, and sow three succession planting of buckwheat.

In early summer remove desirable plants, till & broadcast buckwheat seed. Tamp down.

Just BEFORE it flowers, till it under and immediately reseed.

Repeat the till/reseed process when the second crop is about to bloom.

In Fall, till the third buckwheat stand under just before it blooms. Then plan crimson clover. Seed heavily. The next year, allow the clover to flower, then turn it under. Area is now ready to be put back into production.

Last year & earlier this spring, when I'd see a spot with lots of blades growing through, I'd dump an extra pile of mulch on it. Now as I'm hand-digging the garden to prep for planting (I am SO behind), I'm finding that the areas with the thicker mulch have much more developed root systems. I guess it makes sense, but it was a little disheartening. I don't think I'll do that again this year.

I'm actually starting to come to terms that this is just my "thing." Ever garden has its issues, right?! Besides, my mom just told me that my dear grandma, whose gardens always amazed me, had bad quack grass as well. Now when the quack grass starts to get me down, I can think of my grandma and I won't feel so bad. :)

What Quackgrass likes...
 

Quackgrass likes two conditions: compacted soil and soil with low calcium.

Sometimes these two conditions play hand in hand in that if the soil is below 60% saturation of the CEC of calcium then it will have a tendency to be compacted.

Another thing that will be certain to encourage the growth of this grass is to work the soil when it is too wet. Working the soil too wet destroys the soil structure and makes clods.

If one has a tractor and chisel plow the quackgrass can be killed with proper tillage at the proper times. The weather has to be with you on this. Chisel about 6 to 8 inches deep when it is dry enough at that depth to work the soil. Let the field lay for a week or two and then chisel again when it is dry enough.

The chisel pulls the roots out and if you have dry enough weather between chiseling then they will dry out and die. I have done this on several fields and had 100% kill.

In a garden situation, mulching with layers of cardboard will kill it. The layers will have to overlap and new layers will need to be added when and where the grass finds a way to the light. Black plastic will also kill it. Both of these methods basically starve it to death by restricting the light.