I have a serious thistle problem and was wondering if anyone has had success with using straw as mulch to control weeds? Or should I just cave in and use heavy duty landscape fabric?
Weed Control
I paved my garden walkways with heavy duty commercial grade landscaping fabric, held down with long landscaping fabric staples every 2 feet along the beds and every 6 inches on seams that went across walkways........and I LOVED it!!! Between the paved walkways and the thick straw mulch on my beds, I didn't have to do ANY weeding last summer!! It was awesome! :)
I've used cheap weed blocker fabric under hay mulch and just hay mulch. Either way, it helps a lot, but weeds will still grow through. Finally gave up on putting down the weed blocker, as the chickens dug up the fabric if they got a chance and they'd send the hay flying.
Glenda, where did you get the commercial grade fabric?
Thistles? I would give them a shot of Roundup!
No mulch will stop thistles. Round Up will slow them down & after a number of years they will disappear. Trouble is they come from seed blown around by the wind.
If you don't want to chance killing your plants with the Round UP, take a foam paint brush & paint the Round Up on the thistles. You only need a little right in the middle of the plant to do the job. Try to do it before they bloom.
Most other weeds, it works well with landscape fabric or mulch.
I use Cypress mulch about 3" thick. It takes forever to break down & don't draw the nitrogen out of the soil like other woods & bark does. Easy to replenish each spring also.
I was entirely to busy to hand weed my big Cottage garden this past summer. Very few weeds grew. The ones that did are supplying feed for pheasants & rabbits now that the snow is so deep. My wiofe counted 17 pheasants in there yesterday morning. That is fun to see.
Happy Gardenning!
Bernie
hostamomma - do you have Goldfinches in your area? They love thistle seeds. Around here we call them, Carolina Canaries :)
hostamomma, I use a thick layer of horse hay as mulch and it prevents virtually all germination of wind blown seeds, and the hay itself rarely germinates anything. I imagine straw would do the same. However, in the high rainfall in La I wonder if the hay / straw might be saturated enough of the time to act as a sprouting medium.
Country Gardens I love your idea of using a foam brush. I have on several occasions accidentally hit good plants when spraying round up on weeds. Do you use undiluted round up on your brush? My garden was pretty weedless this year because I use anything from cups to buckets to cover up veggies when I spray round up. I had unsuccessful shoulder surgery years back which prevents me from hoeing and pulling weeds like I used to. I could use your brush method when getting rid of weeds in beds where the veggies are close together. Thanks for the tip. Also, round up does get rid of thistles. Worked for me.
msrobin, I bought my landscape fabric from Alpine Nursery here in Fowlerville, MI. www.arrowheadalpines.com I don't know if their website shows/offers their commercial grade landscaping fabric on line but if you call them, that's the only landscape fabric they sell. They offer it in several widths and sell the staples for it too. They have their nursery paved with it, and have had it down for 10 years now and it still looks great! ......I am very very happy with it!
Thanks, Glenda. I'm doing a market garden and I can't keep up with the weeding. Growing organically, so can't use Roundup.
I mix the Round Up the same as if I was spraying it. Tape a old mop handle onto the brush to save bending over.
I forgot to mention before, I buy landscape fabric at Sam's. It's a nice heavy one. 4ft wide x 250ft long, I think. It was around $35. Cheapest I've seen.
msrobin, 20% vinegar works well on most weeds, especially thistles. Remember though, acid concentrations over 11% can burn your skin, so use caution.
Msrobin, here is a picture of my garden last summer, paved with the fabric. http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/fp.php?pid=7008891 Alpine Nursery sells it by the foot. ....I don't remember what I paid for it, but it was worth it. :) Hope this helps!
Calalily - the vinegar sounds like a good idea, but where do you get the 20% strength stuff?
Hostamomma, I apologize for kind of hijacking your thread. But I think there's info in each post that will help you decide which way to go.
I've got about a 20' weed infested strip (on the neighbors property) between our rural property and the out of state owners to our south. I have to go through it and individually cut back the seed heads and stalks to cut down on the seeds blowing into our yard and garden. I didn't do that late last fall and when we returned home in June, the weeds had totally taken over the garden. The rows that had a good layer of mulch didn't have as many deep rooted weeds, like thistle and johnson grass, and what smaller size weeds were there, were easy to pull since most of the roots were in the mulch. The strawberry rows had the least amount of weeds, because of them shading the soil below. Don't bother with CHEAP weed block fabric....doesn't work well at all.
Calalily, thanks, I had forgotten about using vinegar.
Bernie, great idea with the paint brush on the broom handle! DIdn't know Sam's sold that kind of stuff.
Glenda, great picture of your garden! That would save me a tremendous amount of time not having to weed so much.
A year ago they had a surplus of Miracle Grow potting soil. I got it for $1.80 a bag. Regular price is $11 & change. Brought home 2 pickup loads.
Their landscape fabric is real good. We have it on some greenhouse floors. Only weeds are the ones that sneak in where it overlaps.
We covered the mowed off weeds in our strawberry house. So far they haven't reappeared.
This picture was taken as we were setting the strawberry thing up. More is done now. We will finish in the spring. We need more plants.
Ohhhh....greenhouse envy!
These strawberries produce all summer long. Strawberries on cereal & ice cream everyday!!
Oh, yeah!
I have a question about the landscaping fabric. Is it neccessary to kill the grass before putting down the heavy-duty fabric?
I just mowed it off in the strawberry house.
Sorry, I went back to look at your picture again and saw where you said that.
For whatever it's worth, I did not kill the grass before putting my fabric down either. :)
Thanks, Glenda. The question was for both of you. Glad you both had the same answer....makes it easier for me to decide what to do. LOL!
I found that Lowe's carries a good commercial landscape fabric by Dupont, but they don't have it at this time. Too earlier, I imagine. Guess I'll end up paying shipping, because I want to get it down in the next month or so. Might as well order floating row cover material at the same time. I still need to check out the online catalog at Alpine Nursery. Didn't have time to download it earlier.
msrobin, we have a local organic garden supply store that sells 20% vinegar in gallons. I haven't ever seen it in the big box stores though. If you have a greenhouse supply store in your area, you could check with them.
Bernie, I'm jealous of your strawberries! I wanted to grow them here, they do well in winter and spring but never make it thru the summer months.
msrobin are you sure you can't use round up. Like vinegar it is an acid too and I remember that it has been approved for use in zoos. I know that there are a few different types of round up. One that will keep weeds away for three months. I wouldn't use that because it sounds like it takes 3 months to break down. Regular round up breaks down soon after it is sprayed. I've called up Monsanto before with questions about round up. It couldn't hurt to find out from them if their product is considered organic. You can verify their resources just to be sure. Good luck msrobin.
Sounds like newspaper under the straw won't take care of tough weeds like thistle, but it has worked very well for me with whatever weeds were trying to sprout in my garden. Maybe some vinegar and newspaper would work for you if you aren't yet ready to invest in the landscaping fabric.
HelenVT, glyphosate (Roundup) is not listed on the USDA's National Organic Program list of approved synthetic substances. http://www.ams.usda.gov/AMSv1.0/ams.fetchTemplateData.do?template=TemplateN&navID=NationalListLinkNOPNationalOrganicProgramHome&rightNav1=NationalListLinkNOPNationalOrganicProgramHome&topNav=&leftNav=&page=NOPNationalList&resultType=&acct=nopgeninfo
This message was edited Jan 1, 2010 2:56 PM
Dividedsky, thanks for that link.
LOL! I need all the luck I can get! Not getting off to a good start, so far. Bought a tiller this fall, so we could go ahead and get the additional garden space prepped for this coming spring. Got part of it tilled, then came back a week later to finish tilling and it broke down. Been in the shop for 2 months.
Definitely going with the landscaping fabric, but needed to wait till after the first for tax purposes to order it.
Thanks all for the responses and information. I love it when a topic goes in a different direction but still gives me some great information.
Well (hanging my head in embarassment)....yes, a little off course, but still ways to control obnoxious weeds. Sorry, Hostamom. At least there were some ideas for you (and the rest of us). :)