Aaaah! Garden overgrown again! Need suggestions!!

[chicks4kids]

We bought our home 4 years ago, and have since tried to have a garden. I took a 50 x 50 area had it tilled up (supposed plowed=but not). Anyway, I have been out there for countless hours pulling weeds ( by the root) to no avail. I have used carpet to control the weeds as well. It was a grassy area, and even though I am pulling the weeds and grass out by the root, it seems like I'm getting nowhere!! I do not have one single, descent area without weeds. I'm going bonkers with this. Granted, I do get a somewhat good yield of veggies out of my garden, enough to supply us until the next season, but it is becoming a "where's waldo?" challenge.

I am just about ready to spray everything with round-up this fall and hope for the best, but I'm absolutely discouraged. I have a strawberry patch, blackberry bushes, and asparagus in this same garden. My questions are this....

1. Should I round up a different area and move all of my perennials?
2. Should I round up this area and just stick with that spot?
3. Should I have a farmer seriously plow it for me?

Please, any ideas would be greatly appreciated! I am at a loss....just when I clear one section, another is overrun!!!

 

[JennsPeeps]

1. Every garden has a certain amount of weeds.
2. Boiling water will kill weeds just as efficiently as Round-up or any other herbicide. I dump my water from my canning on the weeds around my yard. Works like a charm.
3. Get some ducks & geese. Supposedly they are good weeders.

I keep my chickens out of my garden in the summer and I've really noticed that I've got a lot more weeds.

 

[cw]

weeds are a partof life, having a farmer plow it will help, but when i plow are fields i have notice the other weed seeds that will be uncovered, the best i have ever seen was spraying a mixture of round up and 2-4 - d in the garden approx 2 weeks before planting(even earlier dependin on what u want to plant)t his can be a little pricey,
but you can visit your local extension office for advice as well,

 

[TXmom]

Boiling water...Brilliant! I never thought of that, and I hate using chemicals if I can get around it

I'm going to boil the weeds on my walkway tomorrow

 

[vfem]

So is life, and so comes weeds...

I use 3 major things.... as many raised beds as I can, mulch and what I call a stirrup-hoe

That things tears through weeds in seconds and not hours!!!!

P.s. - Careful with boiling water... too close to your good plants and it will kill their roots too. Remember, the plants we WANT are extra sensitive.... weeds just keep coming back! ARGH!!!!!!!!!

 

[havi]

I always use vinegar to kill my weeds. I put it in a spray bottle and spray it right on the roots.

 

[maplesky7]

know what I did one year?

I let the weeds grow in the rows between the veggies and then I laid on them and stomped on them and made a path with them. ha ha ha.

did too.

Then I just plucked around the veggies...and said forget the rows in between.

also i noticed when i laid black tarp down...it killed the weeds/grass...where as the white drop cloth did nothing and the blue tarp did some damage but not like the black tarp.

Go get that long roll of black weed mats people put down.

 

[Up-the-Creek]

We planted a huge garden this year, 85x100. We planted our stuff far enough apart (the rows) that we can take DH's small riding mower and mow the weeds. A weedeater works well too, but you have to be careful not to wack the veggies! My mother uses one of those real little tillers, like a weedeater/tiller. It works good too. Weeds is part of gardening, you just have to tackle them the easy way if you can.

 

[insiderart]

Oy vey. Well it just depends upon to what extremes you want to go. Seems like you are working pretty hard right now so maybe you are up for it.

You will need a tiller. No plowing, no need. In general when farmers turn a field there is either a green crop to go in, or it's been treated with pre-emergent anyway.

So, this year you can just keep pulling. Don't let the weeds go to seed.

Now next spring. Till the whole area, tilling around your perennial crops. Take a rake and rake the soil level in small workable levels, you will notice as you work the rake back and forth the roots of the perennial weeds will come to the top of the soil. Rake these into a pile, shake the dirt off, put in a bucket. Move to the next section. Seems like a lot of work, but it's not bad. Makes for much less work during the season.

Now take a leaf rake and rake over your area smoothing it and removing the smaller bits which the leaf rake will separate.

Now after you have raked the whole garden you are ready to plant. I recommend mulch on the rows, landscape cloth on the middles. I like to use cotton seed hulls. Great mulch and within a couple of years they break down adding organic matter to the garden soil. If you keep your middles permanent then in effect you are "raised bed" gardening without raising the beds. Never walk in your rows. Only in the middles. Rotate your crops around.

I laid out my rows as double rows. So it's 4 feet of "bed" 2 feet of middle.

Works for me.

 

[cthrash1]

Our tiller locked up on us after just one row this Spring and I have been hoeing ever since then...Gave up between the rows but still keeping the area with my fruits and veggies cleaned out. And have surrounded all my plants with chicken poop in shavings...WOW what a difference!


ETA: Well had to mow in between my veggies today... Got a little too much to bear.