Weeds

[Anonymous]

I have a 30' x 40' garden. Holy cow...I can't keep up with the weeds! I bought a Mantis mini-tiller hoping that it would at least take care of the weeds between rows, but it doesn't. It disturbs them, but leaves most of them rooted.

Whew...the weeds are a real deterrant to the garden experience.

My wife is milking this whole "I'm 9 months pregnant" thing, so she's no help. :-)

[FDR]

Either put a weed barrier down, mulch heavily or use Roundup

[shazzbat]

Roll her up and down the garden to crush the weeds. You can find a use for anything in the garden if you just put your mind to it.

Steve

[Katra]

If your wife is 9 months pregnant, she has no business out in the hot Texas sun and humidity weeding... Don't be an ass.

Forget the tiller. Hand pull them. Wetting the garden down well first will help.

I pay a local woman $10.00 per hour to do most of the weeding for me. I don't always have the time.......

[Anonymous]

It was pretty obviously a joke.

[enigma]

Katra wrote in news: [e-mail]:

i dunno... i got more weeding done when i was 9 months pregnant than i have since. once i got down to weed level it was too hard to get back up again ;) seriously, i think he was making a joke there.

actually those little tillers just stir up more weed seeds to sprout. hand pull what you can & lay weed barrier, cardboard, or mulch heavily between the rows. eventually the weeds will get the hint. lee

[TQ]

Get a hoe. Use it the day after it rains.

Also consider abandoning rows and plant in blocks. The plants will form a canopy and the shade will prevent many weed seeds from germinating.

[Katra]

Sorry, it did not sound like it. I apologize if it was meant as such......

[Anonymous]

I have a book, "The Joy of Gardening," that talks about planting in "wide rows." I've had the book for years and never had the nerve to try the wide rows. So it really works, huh?

[Maryc]

Newspaper is great for starving the weeds out. Lay it in the rows an around the plants. I always put it down around my tomato plants an then stick the cage through it to hold it down and keep the weeds fro coming up around them.

I remember being in labor and out in the garden putting down stra around my plants to keep the weeds at bay while recouperating fro having the baby. :

-- Maryc

[TQ]

Rows are good if you have a large garden and use mechanized means to cultivate, but the space between the rows is easily 'wasted.'

Square foot gardening is the best method for me. Planting in blocks make the best use of limited space. It's better to tend a small plot intensively than struggle to keep up with a large plot.

My garden has three, four-foot wide beds about 40' long with strips of 'grass' in between. The grass strip is about one and a half times the width of the lawnmower. Some plants are set on a diagonal line and others are straight down the center-line....as the following ASCII art shows...

Romaine... |.......4'......| x x x x x x x x

Tomatoes... |.......4'......| x

x x x x

Squash... |.......4'......| . x . . . x . . . x

Bush cukes... |.......4'......| , x , , x . . x

[Rez]

Speaking of tomato cages, you know those make-it-yourself cubes of

1"metal weave and plastic corners? Costco uses 'em all over the place. Anyway, I used one first to keep the the tomatoes from being squished by cats and eaten by rabbits, and once the tomato grew to fill the cube, the cube thingee began serving as an extra-strong tomato cage (tho I'm not sure this tomato needs it, it's strong as a small tree).

~REZ~

[Nicole H]

mulch with lots of newspaper or cardboard. you can put something on top of the newspaper (leaves, grass clippings, etc) or just leave it as is... newspaper/cardboard is a great weed suppressor. i've even put it on top of growing weeds and it'll kill 'em since no sun can reach the weeds.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the replies!

My neighbor bags his clippings, and doesn't have a garden. So I think after my next weeding I'll go grab a bunch.