Anybody with advice on vegetation killer?

[bobm]

I've downed bitter nightshade, stinging nettle, mustard is easy, crab grass is easy and many other plants.

The basic idea is this, can the plant go two years without sunlight? The cardboard prevents photosynthesis for about that long which kills the plant. With bitter nightshade, I cut it to the ground, cover it with cardboard, then mulch, wet it all down and never see it again.

This doesn't work for everything but it should be sufficient for the home gardener.

Humorously enough this method was pioneered in Australia. Look into the work of David Holmgren and Bill Mollison.

Easy ? Well , I had put down 3 sheets of 20' x 20' black plastic down then several dozen pallets over them then bring in 100 tons / year of alfalfa hay and stacked the bales 16 bales high for 3 years to cover stinging nettle and crab grass near our creek and under a 300 year old oak tree on my ranch. After 3 years, I removed the black plastic to replace the badly torn sheets that spring and after a nice rain guess what came back up ? Now for mustard ... my neighbor has a 17 acre field that every spring when the mustard grows to 5-12 inches tall he then discs the entire field twice to kill off the young plants, then plants barley + wheat . By summer his field is almost solid sea of yellow with mustard blooms. He cuts the barley/wheat crop at the dough stage but before the mustard seed is ripe and bales the barley/wheat hay as feed lot cattle feed that he sells to another neighbor. He has been doing this for each of the last 18 years.

 

[jasonvivier]

Easy ? Well , I had put down 3 sheets of 20' x 20' black plastic down then several dozen pallets over them then bring in 100 tons / year of alfalfa hay and stacked the bales 16 bales high for 3 years to cover stinging nettle and crab grass near our creek and under a 300 year old oak tree on my ranch. After 3 years, I removed the black plastic to replace the badly torn sheets that spring and after a nice rain guess what came back up ? Now for mustard ... my neighbor has a 17 acre field that every spring when the mustard grows to 5-12 inches tall he then discs the entire field twice to kill off the young plants, then plants barley + wheat . By summer his field is almost solid sea of yellow with mustard blooms. He cuts the barley/wheat crop at the dough stage but before the mustard seed is ripe and bales the barley/wheat hay as feed lot cattle feed that he sells to another neighbor. He has been doing this for each of the last 18 years.

If by crabgrass you mean 'Digitaria' I've never seen a problem with just sheet mulching it away. Really it is easy.
I have a question though. Are you planting anything after you mulch? If you don't take away the niche of a plant in the area, than that plant will always return.

Running a disc over the field is only going to insure that the mustard grows back, that seems like a strange thing to do.

But to be clear, we are talking about a 4' bed next to a house, not a hay field. There is always this drive to garden like we are farmers. Farms are designed for machinery, gardens are designed for people.

 

[bobm]

If by crabgrass you mean 'Digitaria' I've never seen a problem with just sheet mulching it away. Really it is easy.
I have a question though. Are you planting anything after you mulch? If you don't take away the niche of a plant in the area, than that plant will always return.

Running a disc over the field is only going to insure that the mustard grows back, that seems like a strange thing to do.

But to be clear, we are talking about a 4' bed next to a house, not a hay field. There is always this drive to garden like we are farmers. Farms are designed for machinery, gardens are designed for people.

Yes. Still a major problem. NOT as easy as claimed ( I guess the West Coast weeds are tougher than other areas). Not in that area... kill, maim, and destroy any and all weeds on very first sight for at least 20' feet in all directions as that ground is used as a road, parking and/ or using/ working vehicles in the shade of the old oat tree.( I have been farming for well over a half century) NO ... discing before bloom or seed set is NOT a strange thing to do , just standard farming practice without using chemical warfare. Folks that garden in their back yards use a hoe to eliminate weed growth too, similar to using a disc. Only the scale is different. Either a 4' bed next to a house or a 17 acre farm field is still being managed in similar fashion for weeding or crop production. The only difference is the scale of operation. Use of machinery or a roll of plastic film is to save time and physical labor just as a hoe or a piece of cardboard saves time and labor over bending over and pulling weeds by hand. Wether one operated a 4' wide bed next to a house or a 17 acre field each piece of real estate produces a crop for the owner's food and benefit as a reward for their efforts.

 

[jasonvivier]

NO ... discing before bloom or seed set is NOT a strange thing to do , just standard farming practice without using chemical warfare..

It seems strange to disc a plant that can regrow from root cutting doesn't it when that plant is tap rooted? I would say another on a list of 'strange' agricultural practices. Just because something is tradition and you believe it to be true, doesn't mean it is a good idea. I get the process of discing mustard if it is being utilized as a green manure but as a weeding strategy it fails which is proven in that it must be done with some regularity.

I agree it is a matter of scale, but the difference is mechanized equipment vs. personal equipment which is what I said, gardening like we are farmers. Or the difference between horticulture and agriculture. With that understanding methods that work for one will not work for the other without adjustment. That adjustment is the difference in design. Gardens and farms require different design and different practices.

And example: Most gardeners don't have the safety equipment that the spray manufactures recommend they use when spraying.

Yes? No?

 

[jasonvivier]

I need to clear the 4' wide bed next to my house. I've been fighting weeds there and I've pruned the yews so much that I killed 5 of them--NO loss to ME--but I'm tired of fighting every year. I understand that vegetation killer clears every plant that is sprayed for about one year and some plants need a second spraying. I'd like to keep the existing yews, the hydrangea in the corner, and the plantings on the north and south of my front walk, but kill off everything else that has been growing around the east and south of the house. Any comments and advice and experience in welcome.

If you are interested in doing this without sprays please see http://www.no-dig-vegetablegarden.com/no-till-gardening.html

and http://www.no-dig-vegetablegarden.com/lasagna-gardening.html

Take care,

 

[majorcatfish]

If you are interested in doing this without sprays please see http://www.no-dig-vegetablegarden.com/no-till-gardening.html and http://www.no-dig-vegetablegarden.com/lasagna-gardening.html
Take care,

it has taken quite a few years of tilling and weed control to get the main garden almost weed free, but there are neighbors who do not mow as much as the should so when they do mow all they do is get those little seeds airborne and yup they land in my gardens.. so i just live with it , just a part of growing farm or home gardening.
plus it gives you something to due having been pulling weeds all winter with the bed covered in plastic... just shy of 365 gardening.

i do believe in a good cover crop for any gardener weather it's compost or a annual crop like what i have been doing using red crimson clover adds nitrogen to the soil , holds back erosion plus it feeds the wildlife they can use it during the winter.

back to tilling
0ne year will till 8"
the next will till 12"
the following year will break out the turning plow
with this method theres no chance of tiller panning even in this north carolina clay...

[QUOTE="jasonvivier,
And example: Most gardeners don't have the safety equipment that the spray manufactures recommend they use when spraying.
Yes? No?[/QUOTE]
if you use any chemicals correctly the home gardener does not need to put on their tyvek suit and a respirator.... it boils down to common sense .. right

 

[seedcorn]

Placing a ground cover will stop photosynthesis but weed seeds can last 7+ years. Not sure how long roots can last.

 

[jasonvivier]

Placing a ground cover will stop photosynthesis but weed seeds can last 7+ years. Not sure how long roots can last.

I'll do a more formal write up on the differences between gardeners and farmers moving forward but I simply don't have the time right now.
I will say that mulching isn't something a farmer can do in modern industrial agriculture so it makes sense that from an agricultural perspective they would deny it works; because...

1. It brings uncertainty into a system that is designed to be specific; so the risk is too high for agriculture.
2. The organic material just isn't available on the scale to meet the requirements of industrial agriculture.
   1. Mulch can only be applied to the surface layer.
      1. You can't apply mulch and till because you will get nitrogen lock up, which isn't great for anyone.
3. A modern industrial agricultural operation isn't designed to be a garden.
   1. And therefore can't become a stabilized system. It is always fighting succession, (plants want to grow, even the ones the farmer doesn't want) - (the ever lasting fight against nature or unstable.)

Gardeners don't have to concern themselves with a level of risk that will put them out of business, nor do they have to assume a mono-cultural garden design (A single crop of corn over 200 acres). Most gardeners have poly-cultures at their houses (some tomatoes there, some peas over there, under an acre, you get the point), so many farming practices that focus on mono-cropping simply just don't apply to the home gardener; mechanized harvest, applications of fertilizer, applications of herbicide, even seed selection is handled differently.

Also In gardening, mulching isn't something you stop doing, because what it really does is feed the soil that feeds the plant. Let me say that again, "It feeds the soil that feeds the plant" I can tell you though that pruning an over grown butter fly bush and dropping that material on the ground (called chop and drop mulching) is much easier than weeding.

Plants grow; so we have mulch; and it is usually free.

 

[Nyboy]

I do chop and drop mulching I always called it Lazy.

 

[jasonvivier]

I do chop and drop mulching I always called it Lazy.

Gardeners can afford to be so.