wrote in message
...
On Mon, 15 Feb 2010 13:06:32 -0800 (PST), chen
wrote:

OK I have gotten a lot of responses, and no I am not trying to kill
the planet--I just want to grow some veggies!

I live in Missouri, and have a lot of crab grass, thistle, and poison
ivy, etc. The garden patch has been extremely difficult to control
the weeds in the past couple of years.

I have tried mulching, almost 4" in deep across the whole area--does
little if anything to stop weeds.
I have tried black plastic, which seems to stop or slow down the
weeds--but makes everything else that much harder to grow.
I have sprayed repeatedly with RoundUP and everything else they sell
at Lowe's, and actually the only one that worked at all was a no name
brand that did kill the weeds for up to 2 weeks. But they came back.
I have tried burning the whole area, looks ugly for a couple of
months---but weeds came back.
I have crawled around on my hnds and knees pulling all of them out and
removing the roots and all. Still they came back.


Gardening should not have to be this difficult. Com'on folks tell the
secret potion I need to fix things so I can have a good garden this
summer.

JMO, but I'd say you need to be at peace with the weeds. What you
fight, you invite or some other such platitude.

Weeding is a constant in gardening. You don't do it once or twice and
that's it for the season. It's a daily/weekly/however often you want
to do it thing. It's getting on your hands and knees weeding,
visiting, tending - being aware of what is growing.

mulching is good - cover crops - I grew red clover amidst the tomatoes
one year to give the weeds less space to grow.

Wise words in your response Kate. Your response made me think of that old
saying: 'The best fertiliser is the footsteps of the gardener'.

Not all weeds are bad chen. Look at them and wonder why they grow, and why
they grow where they do. Thistles for example grow where soil needs to be
repaired. They are what I call 'deep miners' as they (at least the ones I
know, but yours could be a different species) put down deep tap roots and if
you pull them up you will find worms snugged in close to the tap root. they
must be giving something to the worms and I suspect that it is mineral found
at a much deeper level than earth worms like to go and pulled up into the
body of the plant by the deep root.

Creeping grasses are a total bitch though and the only way I have found to
get rid of them is to paint them with a concentrate of glyphosate using a
paint brush. I dont' spray it and I keep a very close eye on the spot to
make sure that if any more emerges, I repaint it as it comes up. I've found
that it has taken 3 applications of neat glyphosate to get rid of it.

I don't know what poison ivy is as we don't have it in this country.

Some general advice I would give is to start very small and to prepare a
small space well and to learn to manage that first before going the whole
hog. To make sure there is always some fallow period and to always remove
weeds before they seed in those beds.