Ping Brooklyn1: how do you keep grass out of your garden?

[Todd]

Hi Brooklyn1,

I noticed on the pictures of your garden that it is surrounded by grass. Mine is surrounded on two sides and I can't keep the stinkin' grass out of it. How do you do it?

-T

[Brooklyn1]

Real RR ties sunken into the ground all around, weed block cloth, plus actual work pulling weeds... and one of the best work-saving gardening tools is a Mantis Tiller.

[Todd]

Hi Brooklyn1,

Thank you!

Those pictures are a true thing of beauty!

One of my grasses blows in as seeds. If the ground is moist, you can grab whole hand fulls at a time. Very shallow roots.

The other creeps along over and under everything. Good luck trying to pull it out. I turn it over with a shovel. It takes it about a month to return to its former glory. I have a bad feeing that if it were challenged by a tiller that the tiller would lose. Stuff is like steel.

When you till, are you not just replanting all the grass seeds?

-T

[Brooklyn1]

This used to be all hay fields. Hay has awfull roots, like steel cable. But I keep mowing and slowly it turns back to grasses. I till the garden in spring and fall, and keep most covered with weed block cloth. I pick up the cloth at the end of the growing season and till, then put the cloth back for winter so it can keep the weeds down in spring... can't really till in early spring as the ground is too wet but the cloth keeps the weeds from growing until the ground dries enough to till. Weedblock cloth keeps the seeds from growing. Buy good cloth from LeeValley.com, theirs lasts 10-15 years. The vegetable garden is not a lot of work, but I mow ten acres every week, that takes me two full days, not to mention keeping the brush around the perimeters under control, and every year trees fall where I mow that I need to clean up... lot's of work but it keeps me young.