Can I cover half my garden to keep things from growing?

I have always wanted a garden but never had one. I want to start with just a few plants and see how it goes. I live in the Ozarks and have really rocky soil so I hired a local farmer to plow and till my soil. He cleared a big area, much bigger than I need right now. We have high winds here which spread all sorts of seeds where they aren't necessarily wanted. Seems like I have millions of grasses and trees growing everywhere. What can I do to protect the garden I'm building? Could I cover part of it up so that nothing grows there? I'm not going to be able to mow it because the farmer is building a fence around it to keep the critters out and a small gate which will not allow access for my garden tractor or mower. Any suggestions? Please help! Thanks.

Sure. Go ahead and put down a plastic tarp, weigh it down well so it doesn't blow off.

But I have to wonder why you're putting in a gate that you can't get your tractor through.

The other thing you could do is to plant something as a cover crop, and then till that in next fall (or spring) when you're ready to use that section.

Assuming the tractor will be able to get in.

Lyly the first full spring I was here, 2-3 years ago, my neighbor plowed a spot in my lawn for garden. Later he came back and ran the disc through it, but then I got very sick. The weed seeds that were turned up by plowing grew like crazy... they were awful! That fall, I got some help to cover over half of it with black plastic over the weeds; it stayed on all winter and I took it off in May. Not as many weeds, but a lot a zillion dandelions and I dug many, many, many. I didn't do anything else but plant in it... big mistake in this heavy clay. Oh, a few things grew okay, but no root crops, and not as much growth as I expected.

Last fall (after a soil test) I put lots of compost and other amendments on it, and had it well-tilled. We still had gobs of weeds but the tiller uprooted most of them and we raked them off. I piled the newly tilled soil up into 3' wide raised no-till beds with a walkway between each bed. Planted garlic and shallots in October and covered it with straw mulch.

I must say that this spring I can really see a payback for all my efforts. I still had a million dandelions, from where the tiller cut the roots... every piece grew! I am going to see if I can keep it a no-till area, and use the walkways so the soil doesn't compact, but I'm thinking I might have to till in one more round of compost this fall. I have started fencing it to keep the large neighborhood dogs from trampling everything, so my situation is similar to yours. I won't be able to get a plow in again, but my little Mantis tiller should take care of what little I will want to till.

I'm so pleased with the results that I intend to take up more grass over this summer and expand my garden. I will cover the new area with black plastic, but I have learned it only keeps new seeds from blowing in... the seeds that have moved down under the grass for years will all want to germinate once they get warmth and sunlight.

Good Luck!

I agree with all that and I did basically the same thing. Although, I personally don't feel like you need to till it again. It will just pull more weed seed up to the top where it can germinate.

I put down heavy hay or straw mulch on both the rows I don't have planted and around the plants on the rows I did plant. I didn't use plastic. By fall, the hay or straw decomposed so much, that I could just take a small hand cultivator and crawled along the rows mixing the mulch into the rows. The soil is so loose and fluffy now, that I can dig potatoes just by reaching into the soil and lifting the potatoes out. I was still fighting weeds in the walkways, so starting last year, after DH mowed, I spread the clippings in the walkway to dry out good (until the next mowing, when I replaced it with fresh cut) before adding to the rows and that sure helped with the walkway weeds. Bear in mind, if you use hay or straw, the hay tends to have a lot of weed seeds, especially the first mowing of the season. Our place was a hayfield when we bought it, so our yard is actually hay. But it looks really nice when kept mowed regularly.

I think the idea with the black plastic, as opposed to an organic mulch, is that the heat encourages the weed seeds to sprout and then it bakes them to death, sort of heat-sterilizing the soil.

Lois, I'm not sure I agree. Very few seeds germinated under my black plastic, although many weeds that were alive got cooked. After I removed the plastic and the sun hit the soil, it was a different matter for seed germination.

Robin, I'm really hoping not to till again. I don't mean deep tilling anyway. My Mantis might churn up the top 2-3" at the very best, much like you did with a hand cultivator. (I'm too old to do that on my knees; besides if I got down, I might never be able to get up again.) My decision partly depends on being able to keep the soil from becoming compacted. There's the question of organic fertilizers migrating deeper than surface application, too. For example, phosphorus doesn't move in the soil much at all, even colloidal phosphate.

I am all too aware that tilling brings up more buried seeds, plus there's a lot of evidence that tilling destroys soil structure.

If she puts plastic on it all summer, wouldn't the stuff that holds it down give the bad bugs a place to live and breed? Maybe she could get some animal manure from those farmers and compost it on the part she isn't using?

I prefer to have it where hubby can get into my garden with the tractor (garden is too big to do it with hand tools). We had to fence to keep the dogs and local deer herd out. The long side fences are fixed with t-posts and are "permanently" placed. Either end, however, is only attached at the corners with wire wrapped around the t-post and through the holes in the fence wire on one side so we can open it up for access with the tractor. (There are two t-posts to support this piece of fence but they are easily removed.) This way I can easily add compost and have hubby disk it in. I can also grow a cover crop of wheat or clover during the winter and have him disk it in come mid-winter.