Help! Weeds get out of Control!

[nofeargardener]

Bummer! Been there before. Not fun. If you're concerned about using chemicals on or near the stuff you're going to eat, you can try a natural mulch.

Once your plants are established, do a full weeding of your garden. Then take your grass clippings and lay down a thick layer (an inch or two) over all the soil. You can continue to add clippings throughout the season, as they breakdown. This will help keep weeds down, water & heat in, and also helps provide beneficial nitrogen... the natural way. An added benefit is that it will also save you room in your yard waste container - possibly saving you money!

If you don't have enough grass to accumulate the amount of clippings you need, You can purchase a bale or two of straw from your local farm & garden center.

Hang in there!!!!
Mike

[pharmerphil]

We garden almost 9000 sq, ft. Probably add another 100 this year..
That being said, I have gardened this area for many years, organically, and have long ago gotten the majority of weeds ousted from the gardens..as was mentioned above...
my best advice:
GET A HEAD START...
Once you till/plow/turn your bed to plant...PLANT as soon as possible, if not right away...this gets you a few days head start on those weed seeds that MSMEG spoke about:
"the ones you just turned up"

Be Less concerned/more tolerant:
although no one wants a bed of weeds to mow in the fall....
weeds are great at bringing up nutrients in their LONG roots, to "just below" the soils surface..
These micro-nutrients are unavailable to the shorter rooted Veggies in most cases...as stated above, just remove the seed heads...

Now, even though we have a large garden, and I'm in my late 50's...I ONLY use a tiller twice a year, as soon as the garden is workable in the spring and again in the fall when we put it to rest...
The remainder of the time I PROWL the rows with my 2 hoes...scraping any would be problems off at the surface..
this approach IS NOT FEASIBLE...if you are a busy person...
Preen, well that's an option, but we are totally organic, Newspapers/News print (Non-shiny) is printed with soy ink...In past years when I knew I would be at the farmers markets or away working at other gardens I would lay down layers (2-3 sheets thick) in the walkways, and cover with grass hay...
Grass hay, cut at the proper time, far exceeds straw , and is cheaper (here anyway)
With straw. you may see oats growing here and there, Hay, typically laced with weed seeds (lambs quarter to mention but 1)

[GYO Mary]

I had a horrible time last year as well with the weeds. I was away more than I was here so that could have been part of it. This year, I'm going to try making individual raised beds and mulching with wood chips in the walkways. I'm also going to lay sheets of newspaper down around my vegetables and then mulch with grass clippings on top of that (mainly to hold it down).

I've also read that cardboard works better than newspaper if you can get your hands on some because it takes longer to breakdown.

[pharmerphil]

cardboard does last longer; however, paper lasts the season, and there is no squishy cardboard to pick back up!

[mdcatro57]

I agree with pharmerphill, cardboard does last longer but the last couple of years I have been putting a thick layer of old newspaper in my pathways and then using compost as mulch around the plants.

When you put the newspaper down make sure that you use your garden hose and wet it down good so it doesn't blow away. I sometimes cover the newspaper with grass clippings, my son own's a Lawn Mowing service so I can get all the grass clippings I want. After I put the grass clippings down I try to keep them damp too.

[pharmerphil]

I agree with pharmerphill, cardboard does last longer but the last couple of years I have been putting a thick layer of old newspaper in my pathways and then using compost as mulch around the plants.

When you put the newspaper down make sure that you use your garden hose and wet it down good so it doesn't blow away. I sometimes cover the newspaper with grass clippings, my son own's a Lawn Mowing service so I can get all the grass clippings I want. After I put the grass clippings down I try to keep them damp too.

Yes, that's the best thing I believe you can do MDCATRO..
I used to have a sickle bar mower, and I hooked up with a realator, kept his properties mowed down, and PILED grass in the walkways every season, had a wonderful garden every year.
I like the newspaper, we added straw or grass hay to cover the paper also.

[Starwynn]

I see some great advice here. Honestly, I use "intensive gardening" and companion planting to keep my weeds to a minimum, and watering to a minimum, too. I also do a lot of mulching with compost (or sometimes alfalfa hay depending on the plant) where there are gaps - that way I don't have many weeds. I only have had to week twice since we planted in early March, and my weeding too all of five minutes - probably a dozen little plants. I've done this before with intensive/block planting and had the same results, ironically also in another horrible drought year like we're having this year (worst since the 20's in Texas).