bermuda grass removal...help!

Hi all! I'm trying to grow veggies organically in the backyard of our city lot, 50 x 100. I was successful the last two years but it's been the biggest fight in the world with trying to keep the bermuda grass out of my beds. The first year, the one in the picture, I covered a 10 x 50 ft area with commercial weed cloth and grew in pots on that side of the yard. Then the next year, I took it up and improved the soil and planted in the ground. Now this year, I've raised the beds in that area and improved the soil again but the grass keeps coming. Now it's taken over my roses, too. I'm cleaning and amending the beds for the spring, although I did have some winter veggies growing this year they didn't do well because of the -9 degree long winter we had here. I just can't figure out a way to get this horrible grass out of my beds. It's roots are so deep I can't dig them out. I don't want to use poisons but at this point I'll try anything I guess. Any suggestions??? I don't know what to do!!!!!!!! Please, if you have ANY suggestions, I would really appreciate it!!!

PrissyJo,
From what I see, looks like you truly want to grow veggies. If that's the case, you should rent that piece of machinery that comes in an lifts your lawn carpet. Once it's all dug out, you could set up more raised beds, and create very attractive pathways between them.

You won't miss the grass that giving you so much trouble...

Or how about this idea? It's a yard somewhere here in Houston, complete with a chicken cage (look toward the middle right and you can see the chickens!)

I'm moving toward just such an idea for my own yard.

Thanks Gymgirl! ~~ What gorgeous pictures! Absolutely beautiful! I've never heard of one of those machines but it would have to be pretty small to get into the backyard plus I need a small area of lawn for the dog to poop!!! Although I'd love to remove the bermuda and replace it with all fescue. We hardly had any lawn when we moved in and I planted fescue all over and a lot of it took but there's still some bermuda in there.

This picture is last years garden showing the small entrance into the yard. I'm standing at a 3 ft wide gate at the back. Problematic for heavy machinery. Then of course, I do realize I live on a tiny lot and try to make the best of it.

PrissyJo - I feel your pain! Been there, done that!

Hubby and I fought Burmuda Grass and won - but the battle was not easy!

Long-story-short: You have to remove the grass by hand. Be sure to get every single piece of white root you see. Don't put it in the compost, it will thrive there! Put it in the trash.

Our neighbor complained that she couldn't get grass to grow in her front yard - so I gave her ours! She now has a thriving lawn, and we have a wonderful vegetable garden.

Prissy,
You have a lovely back yard!

P.S. The machines do come in a miniature size for small spaces...

This message was edited Mar 14, 2011 7:46 AM

Thanks Honeybee! Well, at least there's hope.... someone did it! Gosh I sound so negative here... but.... our lot used to be a river bottom many years ago and it's almost solid with river rock!!!!!!!!! with caliche mixed in. I had to get some guys in there with a powered auger to dig the holes to plant my trees. I've added truckload after truckload of aged manure, a friend who cuts trees brought trailer after trailer of ground stumps, compost after compost just to get anything growing. I know that will be a continuing process, too because so far it keeps disappearing into the ground. It's disheartening but I'm extremely determined. I'm going to try to take a small patch, soak it for a while and start digging and see what happens!!!!!

This is last years raised bed. I've learned I have to plant farther apart.

Thanks GymGirl! I'm going to check around and see what's available here. It would be awesome to get rid of that horrible stuff!

PrissyJo - I've never had to tackle growing on river rock, but it seems to me that you need something under your beds to hold in your precious soil.

Honeybee ~~ yes. That would be great. I just assumed when I started that all the good stuff would pretty much stay near the top because what can get through rock? Well, since it's not one solid rock, but many rocks, it seems to be filling all of the cracks. I'm using thicker compost this year with cotton burrs which are pretty big pieces so hopefully it'll start staying near the surface!

It's called a sod cutter. (That's how they get the sod you buy in pallets.) Roughly roto tiller sized.

Thank you realbirdlady! I'm going looking!

Looks as though Home Depot rents sod cutters:

http://www.homedepotrents.com/proTools/sod_cutter.asp

wow! There was a whole list of power tools I can rent!

Power tools - the great equalizer! I love power tools!

Thank you all! When we moved to Roswell I was thrilled that we had a home depot because it's a small town. However, our HD does not have a tool rental center. Looks like I'm going to just have to try to dig it up a little at a time like Honeybee did. I live in harsh conditions for gardening. I have to shade the veggies on the south and west sides and erect wind shields and water everyday so it's no wonder the place is filled with bermuda grass, it's probably the only thing that will grow on it's own here! Thanks again for your help!

Hello, PJ. I was born and raised about 90 miles from you in Portales on a commercial vegetable farm. So I know about the wind and cold but not specifically about your soil conditions. Have dealt with Bermuda grass in NM 50 years ago and here in North Central Texas.

I personally believe that using a sod cutter would have very disappointing results. It makes a very shallow cut and unlike St. Augustine grass, in my experience Bermuda roots would still be there and come back most likely. Your back yard looks like a wonderful green oasis in what I remember as a pretty desolate countryside. I would not give that up and you can have both - but it will take special techniques, planning and work.

I had a 40' x 6' bed with established shrubs that was solid Bermuda grass. I conquered it with inspiration from reading the threads by this member: http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/800670/ and how she has done lasagna gardening with such huge success. Hers are mainly flowers but vegetables thrive under the same conditions. I'd recommend you read all the threads she has posted. Great inspiration. Changed my whole approach to making new beds and made it half the work of what I was doing before trying to dig up unwanted grass and conquer poor soil conditions.

Number 1: Elevated beds is the only way to go, IMO. Start collecting every large piece of cardboard, blueprints, newspapers you can find. And coffee grounds from area restaurants. I put down a thick layer of cardboard and then coffee grounds and then thick layer of compost ingredients, either finished compost or layered compost ingredients like the member did in the link I mentioned above. It has got to be heavy enough to hold the cardboard/newspapers down tightly on the grass so it will rot. You mentioned a dog. Because of my dog, I have to used mostly finished compost instead of the raw ingredients directly into the yard because my dog would greatly enjoy digging through it. LOL.

The beds will have to have a tight border also or the grass will creep back into it. Plastic edging and large river rock, whatever. A friend of mine in Lubbock wouldn't let her lawn service use weedeater equipment because she said it threw the bermuda grass seed into the beds. She was probably right but I can't give up my weedeater. I just keep an eye on the beds for new sprouts and take care of them immediately. And a few spot applications of Round Up may be necessary at times, although I avoid that unless absolutely necessary because everything else is organic in my yard.

Be careful about the cotton burrs. I don't know if it has changed in recent years but it used to contain some very bad chemicals (arsenic, I believe) because of the defoliant they have to use before harvesting with mechanical equipment. IF it is still the same and your source is not organic, advice used to be okay for flowers; not okay for vegetables.

You can do it !! Considering how much time and energy went into maintaining a garden in all those pots, lasagna beds will be half the work to prepare and not nearly as hard to maintain. With proper soil that maintains proper moisture, my guess is you won't have to use as much sun cover either.

Happy Gardening,
Glenna

Our new raised bed garden that we're getting ready to plant for the first time. We put this in where our circular driveway had extra space but it was packed crushed limestone that had been driven over for 20 years and quite a chore to remove.

This message was edited Mar 17, 2011 5:41 AM

Raised flowerbed putin last fall using lasagna method over mixture of Bermuda grass and St. Augustine grass. Did not dig into existing clay soil at all. Beginning to put plants in but have to protect from the horrible wind we have here almost every day. Also rabbits REALLY like new plants. Ugh! So we put these rabbit wire cages wrapped in shrink wrap around them for a few weeks.

WOW DnP! THANK YOU. You've got a gorgeous set up and it is very inspiring! I went to the Marietta link and just got frustrated because I lived in Georgia for 15 years and wow what a difference in gardening there and here. We bought another little house two doors down from where we live here for me to work out of and I planted 11 fruit trees in the back and tilled up the front yard last year and planted herbs and flowers and veggies in there. So in the fall, I started a lasagna garden in the back. I was very excited about it. But as you know, we only got 5 inches of rain last year, all in July.... and we set record lows this winter to -9. It was consistently below zero for about a month at night and not a flake of snow, not a drop of moisture so because it was too cold for me to be able to run any water, my lasagna garden looks like a pile of dust with everything I put in there, still there. The cardboard is still there, the manure is now big clumps of dried bumps and it was beautiful when I put it down, the grass clippings mostly blew away, etc. etc. BUT the water's back on and I'm going to keep hoping that it will turn into gorgeous soil!!!!!!!!!! Thank you again for your wonderful posts and pictures!!!

Yes, I guess each place has its own challenges. My mother loved gardening to the day she died, even after they retired from farming, and she could not understand why I didn't want a garden here in Texas. Then she happened to come one time when we were first trying a small garden many years ago and I showed her how this clay soil will not let water percolate through it by digging a little hole one evening and putting about a gallon of water in it. There was still a gallon of water in it the next morning! Then she understood why I didn't want a garden with this type soil. When it rained, plants drowned. When we had no rain, the soil became hard as rock and cracked open. I spent years and years trying to improve the soil and grow flowers, with very little I was happy about and I damaged our house's foundation. When I learned about elevated beds, my whole attitude changed about gardening. And when I read the Georgia member's threads about lasagna gardening, I really got going because digging Bermuda grass out of hard red clay was impossible but nothing could be easier than covering it up and letting it rot and proceeding to plant on top of it!!

So I hope you have some rain this season and can get your lasagna gardening to the point the ingredients make the right soil and from then on it should be easier to deal with the climate. And I envy the ability you have to grow fruit, which is really hard to do here because it gets warm early, everything blooms and then a late freeze ruins it all.

Happy Gardening.

We won our fight when I dug out as much as I could, then put several layers of heavy cardboard over the area, and layer after layer of leaves, grass, rabbit manure, and any other thing that would break down for good planting. The first pile was 3 feet high, it reduced in half from Fall to Spring. Now I just keep adding to the pile every fall/winter, with rabbit manure in Spring put in with a light tilling. Good Luck!

Dogs_N_Petunias, wow reading your story about trying to get bermuda out of clay made me realize how lucky I am and surely you don't get much more rain than we do, do you? and your beds look great. So, thank you!

Cathy, thank you for your post because I had only built up to about 18"-24" and I'm going to try to find MORE stuff to put on them and irrigate them like crazy this year and then maybe I can even have a fall garden in them this year.

Our rain is usually either too much or too little. Right now it is VERY dry and the clay ground is so hard that I literally have to use a heavy old-fashioned grubbing hoe for work I'm doing on a drainage swale in my back yard and can't cut into it at all without soaking it first. And frequently run into areas that are iron ore and not soil at all.

Yes, quite different than the fertile farmland I grew up on in New Mexico but even that is not like it was when I was a child 60 years ago with plentiful water from wells. Most of those farms are now "dryland" farms and really sad to see.

PrissyJoe, I was just going to suggest Lasagne Gardening, too.

I'm battling against bahia. I'm soooooo gullible. The local hardware store suggested I rent a sod ripper from them to just cut out the beds I wanted. "Oh yes, that will sure work with the bahia, m'am". Well, that worked for about three months. Then that #@$% bahia came right back. Seems the roots are about 2-3 feet long or even longer (in my case even longer). And Roundup doesn't have long-lasting effects on it either. Nor does vinegar and salt mixture. Burning out only last a bit longer. I had taken to digging it all out by hand--a daunting task in blazing Texas sun, not to mention my poor aching back!

Then some kind sole here on Dave's suggested Lasagne Gardening. I bought the book. It really does work. Like you, I had a learning curve. I didn't read the part where the author mentions that one needs to keep the bed moist the first year. Got the same results as you in the first bed, but I caught on. I also learned I needed the double walled cardboard in ordered to overcome those roots. They need a little extra baking and barrier. And I needed the two feet of build up for sure. But "live and learn" I always say. I also have learned to rototill up the bahia and then the lasagne method over the top works faster for me. I've also learned to burn the edges of the beds, but I can get by with that as I live out in the country and we do things like that as long as there isn't a burn ban on. The bahia likes to jump the edges no matter what edging I use. I'll have to keep experimenting with different edgings.

So I'm still not declairing victory. But I am winning the battle! And I can plant my roses out as soon as I get them, which makes me happy. =)


Good luck to you and you have such a lovely backyard. I love the shade cloth structure!

DnP~~Oh Wow that clay sounds worse than the river rocks I've got! Maybe you could dig it up and sell it to a potter! Back in the early 70s I was married to a potter and we lived in Tennessee and he would dig up the clay and use it to make pots. Apparently it was such a novel idea to dig it up instead of buy it, that his pots got into many different regional galleries! ha! he just did it cause he was a cheapskate!

Yes, I understand the water tables have really receded here. Even Artesia, named after artesian wells doesn't have a single one left.

terri~~bahia sounds just like bermuda! Thank you for the tips on lasagna gardening because I haven't read the book, I was just doing it (wrongly!) on my own. I'll lay down two layers on cardboard as I start over and when I set up my irrigation this year, I'm going to include the lasagna gardens in that. You wouldn't think you'd have to water compost piles either, but I do! Thank you also for saying that about my backyard. I have some roses planted, too that I got as babies from heirloom roses and now three years later they're HUGE! So have fun with yours.

PrissyJo

Two more tips: make sure the cardboard is good and wet and also the book might be available at your local library. =)