The raised beds I'd inherited had dry grass in them, which I assumed I'd killed entirely when I dug the patches up and amended them with compost and garden soil.
But now--even though my lawn won't grow grass--I have grass popping up in my vegetable patch. How do I get rid of it without killing my veggies. I'm really not looking forward to weeding every individual blade of grass.
I wish I could transplant it to my front lawn.
Grass in the garden patch
Can you smother it with a layer newspaper and weed free mulch or are your plants too close together? We do this with most of the vegies except lettuce because the straw mulch makes the lettuce hard to clean. If you have a small sharp hoe, that works for killing most weeds, just stay shallow so not to damage the vegie roots. Joe
I mulch my raised beds with grass clippings. really thick. it pretty much keeps all the weeds down.
Good luck. It will probably take a sharp hoe and lots of hand pulling. Get as much as you can before it goes to seed and don't leave the pulled plants on the ground, many will re-root to torment you later.
Newspaper and then straw/leaves/woodchips will do the trick, esp. if the newspaper is NOT shredded. Good luck!
Next time I might try that recycled rubber mulch mats. If I put that between the rows, I'll have far less extraneous plant life to contend with.
I wish I could transplant the grass to my lawn! There's more grass in the veggie beds than in the lawn.
Or maybe I should just plant vegetables in the lawn and just have patches of "display grass." Kind of a historical display. : )
Well, this is my first year gardening. I guess I should figure that a lot of it will be a learning experience.
Good info here. Thanks!
"There's more grass in the veggie beds than in my lawn."
Here too! LOL
In chat last week, somebody mentioned a grass killer product. I will Dmail him and get the name, because of course I lost track of the slip of paper where I wrote it down. He said it kills everything in the grass family, so isn't safe around all perennials, but I think it might be fine in a veggie garden unless it turns out to be unspeakably toxic.
Heading for Dmail now.... :-)
Don't spray it around corn...
Hey Critter, how have you been?
Melissa
I'm doing all right, but the garden weeds are getting away from me! I could do with a little less insomnia/migraine trouble tonight, but hey, the night is young. Life is good!
Yeah, I figured corn would be closely related to grass, so no anti-grass herbicide near the corn!
dablaw wrote me right back and said,
"Hi Yield is the brand name...It's Grass Killer. I would never recommend spraying anything herbicides around edibles but thats up to you.. It's around $40.00 for 16 ounces..Use at the rate of 1 ounce per gallon."
16 gallons is a lot of herbicide for a home gardener! But that dilution rate does make it pretty cost effective. Hmmm.
I am hoping to avoid this problem so maybe ya'll can help. I am building a 8x4, 1 ft deep veggie raised bed. It is in my "old" veggie garden. The soil is good and fluffy with lots of worms but...it is full of weeds and burmeda grass. So do I till the ground, then add soil to the top of the bed or do I put cardboard down then add all new soil? If I just tilled the soil and added more if I cover it w/plastic for the fall and winter will it kill the grass and bugs? I would love to just add all new soil but it would be costly.
Thanks
wolf
If you're doing it now, I think you can sterilize the soil to kill the weeds and bermuda grass. I think there are instructions around on the web. Something to do with covering it with plastic, can't remember if it's clear or black plastic, and you leave it like that in the hot sun for several weeks and it essentially heats the soil up so much that it kills all the grass and weeds and the seeds as well. Plus it is "organic" because it doesn't involve any chemicals. Others can probably chime in with specifics, or you might Google soil sterilization and plastic?
Just an idea!