"zxcvbob" wrote in message
...
Dioclese wrote:
"zxcvbob" wrote in message
...
wrote:
On May 23, 1:25 pm, "brooklyn1" wrote:
"Suzanne D." wrote in message

...

"Frank" wrote in message
news:631b4004-3cc0-475c-acf5-
4 x 8 sheets of plywood laid over the plot to smother
the weeds would be effective -- and lay out perfect
garden beds at the same time.
_________________________
That's a GREAT idea for a new garden plot! I'd follow it up with
cardboard & mulch, though, to keep the most hardy weeds down during
the
growing season AND to add some organic stuff to the soil when it
decomposes.
Unless one already has the plywood exterior ply doesn't come cheap...
and a
4' X 8" plot is not much gardening space... I'd not bother with less
than
six sheets. And you still need to till, pick rocks, rake, amend, and
till
and rake again, and again. Killing the weeds by smothering or with
chemicals is a total waste of time, labor, and money... there is NO
labor
free gardening. A good deep rototilling will dispatch any
weeds/grass so
that those will never grow again... and NEW weeds are inevitable
forever.
I've been preparing my garden for planting for two days now, I hope to
finish tomorrow and I plan to plant this weekend. Gardening is always
work,
a lot of work.
It was always a lot of work for me too until I read Ruth Stout No-Work
Garden Book 30 years ago, what an eye opener. I just planted this
years crop, took about 5 minutes , just push aside the leaves and
planted the seed and covered it up. No tilling, fertilizing, I didn't
even bother to water, rain is expected soon. (for yield I get about 25
pounds of beans from a 4x8 size area, don't know if that is good or
not). I don't stake tomatoes either.

The secret is just to keep your soil covered with organic material 365
days a year like mother nature does, she'll take care of the rest
(weeding, fertilizing, watering etc)


If I was starting a new garden plot, I would spray one time with Roundup
(actually, probably a generic equivalent) in late spring when the weeds
and grass are growing good. Then that first year I would transplant in
warm season crops like tomatoes and peppers and eggplant, disturbing the
soil as little as possible. Mulch heavily with shredded paper and
leaves and other carbon-rich matter, supplying nitrogen as necessary
just to the plants (mostly in the form of diluted urine.) Keep adding
mulch as it disappears. Any weeds that come up will be starved for
nitrogen (by the decomposing mulch) until you get a chance to pull them
out. Just toss them on top to die and go back in the soil eventually.

Let the earthworms till the soil instead of you, and the dormant weed
seeds will stay dormant. You'll probably never have to use the Roundup
again. By the second year, you can probably grow beans and squash and
other direct-sown crops.

Bob

The original post was about Bermuda grass. This stuff is prolific and
grows around and through just about anything you throw at it. It laughs
at compost as an impediment. I've seen a clay pot full of pure, dry sand
with Bermuda sprouting out it. No, it was not rooting in the sand. The
Bermuda crept through the one drainaige hole at the bottom and worked its
way to the top. The pot was sitting on the edge of a concrete slab, the
Bermuda crept up 6" from the ground, then into the pot's bottom. In
another similar case, a pot sitting on a 4" thick flat rock. 16" tall
pot. The pot did have soil in it. Same thing.

I'm ignoring the newsgroup weblink police fanatic. If you look hard
enough on the internet, you will find that pigs can fly. Doesn't mean
that I believe it.


If you remember, in my first post in this thread I recommended moving :-)
(to get rid of Bermuda.) I used to live in Houston, and for a while in
Temple, TX, I know about the stuff. That's why I'd wait until late spring
and spray everything with Roundup one time -- to kill the perennial
grasses.

Bob

Along with Johnson grass, Bermuda grass is usually the first to reclaim soil
saturated with crude oil. At least that's what I've seen in some of the
old, used up oil fields.
--
Dave

"Suzanne D." wrote in message
...
"brooklyn1" wrote in message news:%YYRl.312
Unless one already has the plywood exterior ply doesn't come cheap... and
a 4' X 8" plot is not much gardening space... I'd not bother with less
than six sheets. And you still need to till, pick rocks, rake, amend,
and till and rake again, and again.

Well, no you wouldn't. If you start off by smothering the grasses with
plywood or some other solid surface, then you shouldn't till at all after
that. Tilling will just bring the submerged weed seeds to the surface and
you'll have the same problem over again. It's much better to smother
everything under where you want to plant (letting the old plants rot and
add nutrients to the soil), and then build on top of that to make new,
relatively weed-free soil. This is why I would advocate cardboard instead
of plywood (since cardboard can be left in place to decompose), but the
plywood *IS* a good idea if you can get it and don't mind moving it when
it comes time to plant.


Again, the original subject was Bermuda grass. Not your generic "weed". If
you don't get the vast majority of the roots out of the soil, you might as
well thrown handfuls of Bermuda grass seed.

The major thing I disagree with the prior post is you have to actually use
your hands to aid getting these roots out of the soil. One needs to use a
spading fork or shovel to bring up a big chunk of soil. Then, allow it to
dry. Then, break each chunk down to free all the subsurface plant material.
Then, you can use power tools.

A good deep rototilling will dispatch any weeds/grass so that those will
never grow again...

A good, deep rototilling will also dredge up dormant weed seeds and bring
them back to life. With my clayey, weedy soil, I have found it infinitely
better to leave the tiller in the garage, and just pile organic stuff on
top of cardboard to make rich, fertile garden plots that are virtually
weed-free.

Again, the subject "weed" is Bermuda grass. It grows right through organic
stackage, wet newspaper, and around solid objects beneath the surface. The
OP did not mention clay soil that I've seen so far, so I don't see the
applicability here. Bermuda grass seeds and germinates that season. Any
remnants are not of any consequence. Timing is what's important, early
spring.
--
Dave

"SteveB" wrote in message
...

"brooklyn1" wrote in message
...

"Dioclese" NONE wrote in message
news
"brooklyn1" wrote in message
...

"zxcvbob" wrote in message
...
brooklyn1 wrote:

I don't believe SteveB has a 2 acre garden, in fact I don't believe
he has any size garden or has ever had any garden, and probably once
he wakes up from his beer fogged trailer trash dream and realizes
what gardening is about he will never have a garden... no one who has
a 2 acre garden (that's a farm, folks) would ever ask such questions
about killing grass and weeds with Roundup defolient... a person
could feed a family of four with veggies from the market for two
years for the price of enough Roundup to treat 2 acres. A person can
easily feed a family of four (and two other families of four) veggies
all year from a 1/16 acre garden and not pay a cent for any chemicals
whatsoever... Steve couldn't afford to treat a 2 acre garden with
H2O. When I read of people with their claims of 4 1/2 acre and 2
acre gardens (none have ever posted a photo) I seriously wonder if
folks here have any concept of what's an acre of garden.



He never said he had a 2 acre garden. He said he has 2+ acres and
uses Roundup, and he's getting ready to put in a garden.


He certainly did refer to his 2 acre garden... why would someone
mention 2 acres in reference to a garden when they are putting in say a
10' X 10' plot?!?!? Actually he did say he already has a garden, a
"weedy" garden _"My garden is weedy. I'm tilling it and preparing it
to plant. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I waited a long time, I know."_ He led
folks to believe he has a 2 acre garden that is all weedy and he was
asking if it was okay to get rid of the weeds in his garden with
Roundup... it is quite clear that his intent was to lead folks to
believe he has a weedy 2 acre garden. Had he truly wanted suggestion
about how to weed his garden (which many offered) an honest person
would have said right from the gitgo what size area (he said 2 acres),
otherwise no one could offer help except some generalizations and
mostly wild speculation. Just like the last person who boasted that
she had a 4 1/2 acre garden but when I asked her to post pictures of
her garden she didn't deny it but instead posted pictures of all sorts
of things but none of any garden (probably a neighbor's property).
People on usenet are smarmy, they make all sorts of wildly exaggerated
claims and tell down right lies... very few are who they say they are.
Many of the pictures folks post are not of their garden and/or not of
anything they themselves did. It's easy to post a picture of someone
elses garden, or some landscaper was paid to do and then claim they did
it, and cameras are very portable so anyone can take a shot of a garden
across town, and it's very easy to lift an image off the net... when
someone posts a pictures of fully cropped flowers I wonder where they
stole those images.


You made your point when talking about smaller acreage and affordibility
of Roundup vs. feeding the family. I don't digress. You did just waste
your "breath" though on a point that is really moot from the prior
replying poster.


Sheesh, who made you sole arbiter of what peeps post... your responding
to my post added nothing, whereas yours and you are the total waste...
and obviously you haven't a clue what "digress" means or is your use
germaine, you just inserted the tired overused word self-servingly in
hopes of elevating yourself to a position of importance and superiority,
not. I'm positive you don't have a garden either, never did, never
will.... what an insignicant pinhead your momma bred.

And it sounds like you're a pimple faced idiot with little real world
experience. Either join in the conversation or STFU.

On second thought, you haven't written anything yet I consider worth
reading, so, it's to the compost pile with you.

bubye

Steve


Now, now. Ya'll settle down. I should have not acted as newsgroup
policeman. Rather, I should have allowed Brooklyn1 to see what I'm talking
about on his/her own. In retrospect, it was not polite. It may have been
embarassing to him/her to expose that folly. I would expect so by my
observation his/her subsequent reply's substance. I should have left well
enough alone. My apologies to him/her.

I'm a "him" if you choose to address me by the way.
--
Dave

"Dioclese" NONE wrote in message
Again, the original subject was Bermuda grass. Not your generic "weed".
If you don't get the vast majority of the roots out of the soil, you might
as well thrown handfuls of Bermuda grass seed.

On a similar subject, does anyone know how to make Bermuda grass GROW?
We've tried planting it in our front and back yards several times now
(having given up hope with less-aggressive grasses), and we STILL can't get
it to grow. We water it, and it grows okay, and then the sun shines and
kills it all, until there's nothing left but bare ground (not even tufts of
dead grass). People here are talking about how it is impossible to get
Bermuda grass to stop growing, but I wonder how much of a start it needs to
get to the point where it is impervious to everything!
--S.

"Billy" wrote in message
news:wildbilly-9AF373.11035224052009@c-61-
"Mulching will get rid of most weeds, but Bermuda grass and its allies
and bindweed will come up through any mulch, sooner or later, except for
6 overlapping layers of cardboard, covered well beyond the grass border
by heavy black plastic, maintained for at least a year."

I've got a serious bindweed problem myself, but after a few years of
cardboard, the shoots that make it through are much smaller and more easily
removed. I think the cardboard just stresses it out after a while. Either
that or, since the ground is covered, the bindweed is no longer needed to
protect it.

One thing I noticed, though, when I had thick tangles of bindweed in between
my raised wooden beds in my first year of gardening, is that they were FULL
of spiders. I'd step into a patch and a dozen spiders would start crawling
up my leg. And I had NO bug problems that year. So maybe it's worth having
around for some reasons!
--S.

On Sun, 24 May 2009 16:25:53 -0600, "Suzanne D."
wrote:


"Dioclese" NONE wrote in message
Again, the original subject was Bermuda grass. Not your generic "weed".
If you don't get the vast majority of the roots out of the soil, you might
as well thrown handfuls of Bermuda grass seed.

On a similar subject, does anyone know how to make Bermuda grass GROW?
We've tried planting it in our front and back yards several times now
(having given up hope with less-aggressive grasses), and we STILL can't get
it to grow. We water it, and it grows okay, and then the sun shines and
kills it all, until there's nothing left but bare ground (not even tufts of
dead grass). People here are talking about how it is impossible to get
Bermuda grass to stop growing, but I wonder how much of a start it needs to
get to the point where it is impervious to everything!
--S.


I've always started it from sod rather than seed, I prefer the hybrid
varieties. It seems to like a lot of water, at least until it gets
its roots down deep, then mine can go all summer without watering.

On Sun, 24 May 2009 16:25:53 -0600, "Suzanne D."
wrote:


"Dioclese" NONE wrote in message
Again, the original subject was Bermuda grass. Not your generic "weed".
If you don't get the vast majority of the roots out of the soil, you might
as well thrown handfuls of Bermuda grass seed.

On a similar subject, does anyone know how to make Bermuda grass GROW?
We've tried planting it in our front and back yards several times now
(having given up hope with less-aggressive grasses), and we STILL can't get
it to grow. We water it, and it grows okay, and then the sun shines and
kills it all, until there's nothing left but bare ground (not even tufts of
dead grass). People here are talking about how it is impossible to get
Bermuda grass to stop growing, but I wonder how much of a start it needs to
get to the point where it is impervious to everything!
--S.

I know you're in a different climate so perhaps it's not an issue, but
I would never sow Bermuda grass if I intended to garden. Here in TN,
once it gets going, it's never going to get gone.

Kate - been pulling some Bermuda grass today

On Sun, 24 May 2009 16:25:53 -0600, against all advice, something
compelled "Suzanne D." , to say:

On a similar subject, does anyone know how to make Bermuda grass GROW?



Apparently, it does best under three feet of Roundup treated
concrete.




--

Don't worry about people stealing an idea. If it's original, you will
have to ram it down their throats.
- Howard Aiken

"Billy" wrote

Looks like you can prep for next year, but this year looks like you have
your work cut-out for you.

Basically you nailed it. Too bad you ended the entertainment of
intellectual masturbation by the impotent.

When I have owned gardens in the past, I noticed that they do improve every
year if you work at them.

Steve

In article ,
"Suzanne D." wrote:

"Billy" wrote in message
news:wildbilly-9AF373.11035224052009@c-61-
"Mulching will get rid of most weeds, but Bermuda grass and its allies
and bindweed will come up through any mulch, sooner or later, except for
6 overlapping layers of cardboard, covered well beyond the grass border
by heavy black plastic, maintained for at least a year."

I've got a serious bindweed problem myself, but after a few years of
cardboard, the shoots that make it through are much smaller and more easily
removed. I think the cardboard just stresses it out after a while. Either
that or, since the ground is covered, the bindweed is no longer needed to
protect it.
Yeah, bindweed and Bermuda grass have chlorophyll and need sun light to
survive. If you live where it gets hot in the summer, black plastic
blocks out the sun as well as holds in the heat.

". . . since the ground is covered, the bindweed is no longer needed to
protect it."

Huh?

One thing I noticed, though, when I had thick tangles of bindweed in between
my raised wooden beds in my first year of gardening, is that they were FULL
of spiders. I'd step into a patch and a dozen spiders would start crawling
up my leg. And I had NO bug problems that year. So maybe it's worth having
around for some reasons!
--S.
--

- Billy
"For the first time in the history of the world, every human being
is now subjected to contact with dangerous chemicals, from the
moment of conception until death." - Rachel Carson

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=En2TzBE0lp4

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1050688.html

"Steve Daniels" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 24 May 2009 16:25:53 -0600, against all advice, something
compelled "Suzanne D." , to say:

On a similar subject, does anyone know how to make Bermuda grass
GROW?



Apparently, it does best under three feet of Roundup treated
concrete.


I've been pulling weeds in my front yard which used to be a "lawn" but is
now a corn field. I've been only removing weeds and leaving the odd tufts
of grass to grow, but maybe if I start pulling the grass too and trying to
get rid of it, it will take over the whole yard.

But then, I'd be stuck with a lawn instead of a corn field, so...
--S.

"Billy" wrote in message
...
In article ,
"Suzanne D." wrote:

". . . since the ground is covered, the bindweed is no longer needed to
protect it."

Huh?

Bindweed and other weeds grow when the earth is exposed. It's nature's way
of keeping the earth covered and protected. Before I started using cover
crops to cover the bare earth, the bindweed took that job.
--S.

"Suzanne D." wrote in message
...

"Dioclese" NONE wrote in message
Again, the original subject was Bermuda grass. Not your generic "weed".
If you don't get the vast majority of the roots out of the soil, you
might as well thrown handfuls of Bermuda grass seed.

On a similar subject, does anyone know how to make Bermuda grass GROW?


Cover it with cardboard, asphalt or concrete. :-)

"Billy" wrote in message
...
In article ,
"Dioclese" NONE wrote:

Even the newsgroup website link pointer fanatic is confused here.

I don't need to be characterized by a flange head. Don't you ever get
anything right?

When I post a cite, it says there are at least other people who support
a position.

When you give your opinions, you are all alone.
--

- Billy

Something to do when you're not spending hours and days desperately
searching for someone to agree with you on the internet.
http://www.dailyfreegames.com/games/...s-can-fly.html
--
Dave

On May 23, 4:25*pm, "brooklyn1" wrote:

Killing the weeds by smothering or with
chemicals is a total waste of time, labor, and money... there is NO labor
free gardening. * A good deep rototilling will dispatch any weeds/grass so
that those will never grow again... and NEW weeds are inevitable forever.

Tilling brings up dormant weed seeds, such as bindweed, which
then sprout and give you tsouris for the rest of the year. Only
effective remedy short of 2-4D is constant mowing to starve the
weeds of sunlight-derived sugars.

What are you doing to maintain good, well-drained tilth?

I've been preparing my garden for planting for two days now, I hope to
finish tomorrow and I plan to plant this weekend. *Gardening is always work,
a lot of work.