Discussions

Hello. Has anyone out there tried zero till vegetable gardening? e.g. a few layers of newspaper with grass clipping or straw on top? If so, was it better at keeping weeds at bay than simply weeding and tilling or did you get weed seeds from the mulch anyway? Thanks.

Round up works well! Lol  
 
We till at the beginning and the end of the season. Have yet to find a a way to keep the weeds down

Very good source of information.  
This is an open course on permaculture:  
 
https://www.openpermaculture.com/

Once I worked the garden, spread straw and planted into rows I raked out. Worked well. Tried leaving over winter and planting into new rows and it wasn't so successful.  
I am not an avid gardener but try to keep things low work. Mulching is a great investment. Conserves moisture and suppresses weeds. Also allows you to pick veggies when it's wet. Suggest using lawn clippings if you can get enough or maybe alfalfa silage if you need a large amount, as it will have few weed seeds. I used old carpet once, don't recommend it. Made the soil super hard.

After the topic of roundup and controlling grass, I gave things some thought. As you get older some things don't seem quite as appealing, like weeding a garden. This year my wife wanted to grow some tomatoes, but I don't like getting down to weed, so I resorted to redneck mentality, we went to a raised garden idea, the redneck part of it was I used an extremely large tractor tire to make my raised bed, redneck for sure but it worked well for a rural area, and one could sit all around the tire to pull the few weeds that grew, worked great.  
Next years idea came from suggestions on the grass problem topic. Next year will involve the raised garden idea, a trickle hose, and silage plastic. Silage plastic is a very heavy type of plastic and is white on one side and black on the other, so of we are growing things like cucumbers the black side will be up to create a hotter seed bed and environment, whereas things like peas or carrots and other plants will have the white side up to moderate the heat.  
The seedbed will be enriched with well rotted manure, and a trickle hose place just under the surface, the silage plastic will be cut to fit, and for seeds that need to be sowed will be sowed in a slot cut in the plastic, and for things like tomatoes or anything that is transplanted a small whole will be made.  
Everyday I question my sanity, but sometimes things work out nicely.

Actually, you may consider heading to Brandon city landfill (Victoria east) to pick up some free wood chip mulch. The city of Brandon puts any wood that enters the dump into a wood pile, then chips it into small wood pieces. This wood is used by city workers as a topper to clean up garden areas. They also allow the public to take wood chips free of charge (along with compost). I have used the wood chips to spread at the base of a cedar hedge before, and it works great at keeping weeds out. I''m pretty sure it would likely work in a garden, but I wouldn't put them down until your plants have already started to poke through. It's just a thought, but others might know if this strategy would work or not ...  
 
http://www.finegardening.com/six-tips-effective-weed-control  
 
Edited by JoeSixpack, 2017-09-25 00:18:32

Hi, I have tried everything the past 3 years and my conclusion is mulching will help but nothing will keep grass out other that raised beds. I am seeing a year to year improvement but it's still a battle. I have tried the black cloth, cardboard, paper, grass and wood chips. fresh cut grass clippings will burn and kill almost anything when you cover. wood chips will help but weeds and grass will get through.  
but anything is better than spraying poison (roundup) on your garden!!!

If you would see the amount of chemicals that gets sprayed on farmers crops or on our fruits and veggies not to mention the crap put in our food I would say the roundup we use to kills weeds in our garden 1x to 2x a year is nothing lol

I have gone to raise beds for garden veggies  
Made out of free pallets  
What I found is that you can really tighten up the row spacing. Beds are designed that you can reach in from both sides. So there is not a lot of space and I found that after the plants were up and really growing weeds were not much of an issue as the ground hardly gets any sun  
I planted corn and beans in the same box. The beans climbed the corn and I never had to weed that box after July 1 The more I tightened up the row spacing the less weeds there was

RC123 said "If you would see the amount of chemicals that gets sprayed on farmers crops or on our fruits and veggies not to mention the crap put in our food I would say the roundup we use to kills weeds in our garden 1x to 2x a year is nothing lol "

I, for one, am very concerned about this, and it forms my consumer habits and effects what I buy and feed my family. It''s also why we try to grow as much as we can ourselves, in a closed permaculture using organic methods. I don''t even spray my lawn but remove weeds manually even though spraying would be far easier. So yes, Roundup once or twice a year is not nothing to some people.  
 
But truly, the way to go is raised beds if you''re dealing with smaller spaces like in the city. You can plant far denser, reducing the overall need to weed and giving more crop per planted square foot. Like any other kind of weeding, you need to keep up or else your seed load won''t go down year to year, but it does gradually go down (as in, there''s no quick fix). You also reduce the need to till/disturb the soil because you're not compacting it by walking on it. I lay wood chips between my rows to reduce weeds there.  
 
If you have a larger area, mulching works really well from what I hear. I met someone who has an acreage and has wood heat, and basically they chip and chop all their own wood from their lot, and do virtually all their planting in the chips. She says after about 5 years, they had virtually no weeds. Again, no quick fix but long-term goals.  
 
Edited by Abbysmum, 2017-09-25 15:34:53

RC123 said "If you would see the amount of chemicals that gets sprayed on farmers crops or on our fruits and veggies not to mention the crap put in our food I would say the roundup we use to kills weeds in our garden 1x to 2x a year is nothing lol "

I think we should try to reduce our exposure to those chemicals, not increase the toxic load on our bodies even more. roundup is showing up in residual amounts in our drinking well water now. Its probably worse in the river water, our filtration systems aren't designed to deal with those chemicals.

Abbysmum said "    RC123 said "If you would see the amount of chemicals that gets sprayed on farmers crops or on our fruits and veggies not to mention the crap put in our food I would say the roundup we use to kills weeds in our garden 1x to 2x a year is nothing lol " I, for one, am very concerned about this, and it forms my consumer habits and effects what I buy and feed my family. It''s also why we try to grow as much as we can ourselves, in a closed permaculture using organic methods. I don''t even spray my lawn but remove weeds manually even though spraying would be far easier. So yes, Roundup once or twice a year is not nothing to some people.     But truly, the way to go is raised beds if you''re dealing with smaller spaces like in the city. You can plant far denser, reducing the overall need to weed and giving more crop per planted square foot. Like any other kind of weeding, you need to keep up or else your seed load won''t go down year to year, but it does gradually go down (as in, there''s no quick fix). You also reduce the need to till/disturb the soil because you're not compacting it by walking on it. I lay wood chips between my rows to reduce weeds there.     If you have a larger area, mulching works really well from what I hear. I met someone who has an acreage and has wood heat, and basically they chip and chop all their own wood from their lot, and do virtually all their planting in the chips. She says after about 5 years, they had virtually no weeds. Again, no quick fix but long-term goals.     Edited by Abbysmum, 2017-09-25 15:34:53"

I have done mulching on a smaller scale. I put a couple layers of wet newspapers and then grass clippings between the rows, and that stops weeds between the rows, but then we still till in the fall and spring. We are thinking about mulching heavily this fall and not tilling any more. I have already put wood chips in the perennial vegetable garden area, i.e.in the asparagus, strawberry, rhubarb etc area.