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Georgia

I was wondering what some of yall do in your gardens to stop weeds. Ive always had good success with spreading hay real thick and I hardly ever pull any weeds until late in the season. I spray the hay from time to time along with the rest of the garden with fungus and disease control spray and havent had any problems. My question is does that weed blcok fabric the black kind work?

5/11/2007 3:59:08 PM

NEPA roller46@hotmail.com KB3QKV

We always used 4inches to 6 inches of grass clippings and that seemed to limit the weeds. But our gardens, flower and vegetable are bigger this year and we do not have enough grass so we are also going to use straw. We never had problems with weeds and the grass does wonders for the garden. In one place last year we used that black fabric. It did work but it was a little more difficult for us to plant the flowers in the fabric. That was ok but this year, we were going to plant in the fabric again but we would have to cut more holes and the old holes would remain there. Now we also covered it with bark mulch. This year when we removed the black fabric, the soil appeared to be darker and moister. We had more worms than anticipated under the fabric but we also had those tiny nuisance ants in several places. IMHO I would say it does work but more work involved than if you did not use it. I would prefer to do without the ants. We will stick to the grass clippings and the straw. We never had any ants where we used the grass.

5/11/2007 6:58:27 PM

Michigan

I started using a stirrup hoe this season and I love it!!! Catch the weeds when the are just germinating and it is easiest. I have been covering the entire patch with the stirrup hoe once or twice a week. It's surprising how little time and effort it really takes if you do it often enough.

~Jessica

5/13/2007 10:30:47 AM

Rochester, Minnesota

Weeds....The joy of gardening.

First, I chase down all crab grass, nettles, and stink weed. These I dig out getting all the roots.

Second, I try to limit my tilling, since it just brings more weed seeds to the surface.

Third, I use a like hoe to rough up newly spouted seeds.

The biggest weed problem I have in my garden is Dill, followed by Cilantro, and then tomatoes.

5/14/2007 10:31:02 AM