I've been digging out the very thing. I shall participate, w/ pleasure.
Most alll of mine gets sacrificed in the present "static pile" of compost
that I have been building.
bille
..............................................................................
...................
"Bermuda grass (Cynodon dactylon) aka. Wire grass, devilgrass, scutchgrass,
dogtooth grass, vinegrass, couchgrass. A mat-forming perennial grass,
widespread in warm regions and important as a lawn and pasturage grass in
the southern United States. It is also common as a weed. Also called scutch
grass."
http://216.239.53.104/search?q=cache:q5v8La5gpNAJ:www.blitzworld.com/lawn/we
ed%2520grass.htm+scutch+grass+picture&hl=en
Behalf Of JT Thompson
Sent: Saturday, May 22, 2004 1:14 PM
To: OGL@LSV.UKY.EDU
Subject: Scutch/couch/quack grass
Anyone want to join in a mass hate-in against scutch-grass?
Letting it die off a bit , in the field, is a good thing.
Good thinkin.
Behalf Of JT Thompson
Sent: Saturday, May 22, 2004 1:51 PM
To: OGL@LSV.UKY.EDU
Subject: Re: Scutch/couch/quack grass
> I've been digging out the very thing. I shall participate, w/ pleasure.
> Most alll of mine gets sacrificed in the present "static pile" of compost
> that I have been building.
I was so tired I didn't even put it on the compost heap! Just raked
it into a huge ridge.
The sides of my fingers are split with pulling it and I don't think I'm ever
going to get a handle on it! I haven't bought the flamer yet but I tried a
steamer and nothing happened. So I tried the steamer in the morning just as
the sun was about to start scorching the ground. Nothing happened. So I
tried the steamer and then used vinegar. That set it back .... just a
little on the patio but I can't be using the vinegar in the garden!
I thought bermuda wasn't supposed to have deep roots. This stuff sure does!
It IS eradicated where I let the ground ivy take over, for now anyway.
Laura
Anyone want to join in a mass hate-in against scutch-grass?
> I've been digging out the very thing. I shall participate, w/ pleasure.
> Most alll of mine gets sacrificed in the present "static pile" of compost
> that I have been building.
I was so tired I didn't even put it on the compost heap! Just raked
it into a huge ridge.
Hello Laura,
Have you tried using landscape fabric to control bermuda grass ?
Landscape fabric is a geotextile that will last for many years if covered
with mulch. It can also be used without mulch but will not last as long.
It can also be removed from the field after the growing season and reused in
different locations.
A very well managed organic farm in NC (see the following link for a profile
of the farm:
http://www.newfarm.org/archive/1000_stories/sare_stories/hitt.shtml )
uses landscape fabric for early peppers and tomatoes. They have been reusing
100'x5' pieces of landscape fabric for many years. A single row of
transplants is set every 24" through holes cut in the landscape fabric. All
of their growing beds are 100' long.
You might also want to install some barriers along the edges of your beds to
prevent the incursion of bermuda. My parents are considering installing
some 12" aluminum flashing along the edges of their blackberries to keep out
quackgrass. Both quackgrass and bermuda grow deeper than 12" but my
experience is that few if any of their horizontal rhizomes grow deeper than
12".
Joel
Joel Gruver
Dept of Soil Science
NC State University
jgruv@hotmail.com
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Joel, When the neighbor installed his arsenic privacy fence we bought the
12 inch black plastic barrier that you dig into the soil and outline your
beds with. As soon as we realized the fence was arsenic, my sons and I we
dug 200 feet of it into the border area of our land while also reforming the
land in the area to prevent the arsenic from washing into our beds. (This
worked only a little because we got tremendous downpours that flooded
everything just days after the fence and our barrier was installed.)
The up side was that this created a barrier between his back yard full of
the field bermuda and our gardens. The bermuda creeps over the barrier now
and then but I'm being vigilant.
On the other side of the 200 foot long garden area the land lies between 12
to 20 inches above our back yard. (We formed these beds with a pick axe
against a steep hill side:) Still the bermuda creeps up into the beds. At
some point I will install a barrier there too. For now I've been trying to
keep a swath of clear soil between the garden edge and the lawn while hand
sifting the beds soil to remove as many roots as possible. We no longer use
the beds for vegetables but this year my grower's license is for also
selling cut flowers and that is what I'm growing in these beds. I hope by
the end of June to be selling the cut flowers at our new farmer's market.
The beds I now use as vegetable beds are all raised and lined with rocks
from the mountainside. I'm slowly buying barrier for each bed as our budget
allows for it. I noticed that the poison ivy has grown out from under my
mulch of cardboard and newspaper and leaves in the paths and up and over the
barrier. I'll have to be vigilant about that as well.
The landscape fabric is a great idea now that I have no one to complain
about what I use in my garden. I use to have to hide remay and newspapers
from the neighbor but the fence took care of that problem. I have noticed
that if you use even a bit of mulch over a ground barrier that the grass
grows right into the mulch.
Every idea is helpful and appreciated. I've had others in our town ask me
about handling the Bermuda so I'm sharing everything I learn with other
organic growers.
The neighbor that built that arsenic fence has moved. Today at a funeral for
a different neighbor, I overheard my new next-door neighbor talking about
his garden (we can't see into their yard anymore). I haven't ascertained if
he's organic and sort of doubt it but we'll have things to talk about
anyway.
Laura
in
> different locations.
> A very well managed organic farm in NC (see the following link for a
profile
> of the farm:
> http://www.newfarm.org/archive/1000_stories/sare_stories/hitt.shtml )
> uses landscape fabric for early peppers and tomatoes. They have been
reusing
> 100'x5' pieces of landscape fabric for many years. A single row of
> transplants is set every 24" through holes cut in the landscape fabric.
All
> of their growing beds are 100' long.
> You might also want to install some barriers along the edges of your beds
to
> prevent the incursion of bermuda. My parents are considering installing
> some 12" aluminum flashing along the edges of their blackberries to keep
out
> quackgrass. Both quackgrass and bermuda grow deeper than 12" but my
> experience is that few if any of their horizontal rhizomes grow deeper
than
Problem with both bermuda and scutch (besides the fact that if you use a
rotary cultivator on it you propagate it as JT has discovered the hard way)
is that it will go to almost any depth if the ground has been cultivated
making it easy for it to do so.
Part of the solution is to give it somewhere easy to run. As well as
weakening it by stopping light getting to it landscape fabric has the
benefit of providing a nice cool moist root run at the surface. So the evil
grass runs along in this nice damp cool place just under the surface and
you can pull back the fabric and haul it out by the armload. Likewise it
would rather colonise mulch, or the soil surface just under mulch, than
make the effort to go deep. You can often catch bindweed the same way. I
find that when quack is coming up through mulch you get better control by
teasing it out, disturbing the mulch as little as possible than by hoeing.
Though pulling back the mulch, hoeing, and raking off the victims, is good too.
This is fine where the infestation is not too bad but in a situation like
JT's, where the **** stuff has actually been propagated they only effective
way I've ever found it the use of a lightweight digging fork and going
after it a thread at a time.
However,if you can get hold of a rotavator again JT, and can use it about
every three weeks, gathering and composting what gets wound around the
tines and raking off what the tines bring to the surface, you will get
nearly all of it out or dead in the course of five or six attacks. This is
actually the method recommended for a permanent solution by both the HDRA
and the UK Dept of Agriculture (the Irish one recommends RoundUp I'm
afraid) and studies have shown it to be more effective than RoundUp. But
you do have to keep tilling until it gives in. Each re-growth will be
weaker than the one before.
Not sure whether you want to spend this much effort on ground where you
will only be for a couple of years though
kathryn
Have you tried using landscape fabric to control bermuda grass ?
> On the other side of the 200 foot long garden area the land lies between 12
> to 20 inches above our back yard. (We formed these beds with a pick axe
> against a steep hill side:)
Respect! A powerful woman!
Time to drop over with that "welcome! I'm your neighbour" apple pie, it seems.
> Wire grass, devilgrass
Yes! Yes!
What kind of mulch should you use on top of the landscaping fabric?
Damn, I wish I had a trailer, or a proper car. The car I have now is
a saloon, which I bought from the friend who does my accounts. It's
much bigger and stronger than any car I had before, but has a
pathetic boot. I've never before had a car that you couldn't use for
transporting at least a wardrobe!
The council here has compost that you can collect for free in a
trailer, but this blasted car is no use for that. Hmmm. Might ask the
council if it would be possible for them to dump a big load of it
into the allotments.
Give me a ring JT - you can get a lot of bags of compost into a Kangoo.
kathryn
In a message dated 5/23/04 1:00:56 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
laurabrownmckenzie@WORLDNET.ATT.NET writes:
<< The landscape fabric is a great idea now that I have no one to complain
about what I use in my garden. I use to have to hide remay and newspapers
from the neighbor but the fence took care of that problem. I have noticed
that if you use even a bit of mulch over a ground barrier that the grass
grows right into the mulch.
The neighbor that built that arsenic fence has moved. >>
Whoever said "love thy neighbor" surely knew that it's one of the hardest
things to do.
Mary Ann
Joel,
I actually tried landscape fabric under wood chips years ago. The
grass tillers (or whatever the pointed growing tips are called)just
stabbed the fabric and came up right through it.
Heavy duty black plastic does have some effect, but I've only used it
in my paths because everything in the veggie garden is so closely
planted.
Libby
JT Thompson wrote:
> What kind of mulch should you use on top of the landscaping fabric?
> Damn, I wish I had a trailer, or a proper car. The car I have now is
> a saloon, which I bought from the friend who does my accounts. It's
> much bigger and stronger than any car I had before, but has a
> pathetic boot.
Can't you get a trailer hitch added to your present car, then you can
always hire a trailer by the day when needed.
Until our latest car, we have always made sure that every car we owned
had a trailer hitch on it!!!
With the latest one (which came without a towball) we decided,
reluctantly, that we were getting "a bit past it" for digging and
hauling stuff by the trailer load!
Tony
--
Tony & Moira Ryan,
Wainuiomata, North Island, NZ. Pictures of our garden at:-
http://mywebpages.comcast.net/cherie1/Garden/TonyandMoira/index.htm
NEW PICTURES ADDED 4/Feb/2004
We always added a trailer hitch to vehicles until our government decided to
add to the annual taxation for those with a hitch and the insurance
companies decided to load policies - now we manage without.
Kathryn Marsh wrote:
> We always added a trailer hitch to vehicles until our government decided to
> add to the annual taxation for those with a hitch and the insurance
> companies decided to load policies - now we manage without.
Oh! Dear!!! What queer ideas your govt (and insurers) appear to have!!!!
I would think at least a quarter of all private cars in NZ have a
towball on the back, and almost every garage (service station) in the
country has half a dozen trailers parked outside for hire, at about $10
per day.
We never owned a trailer, but would go and hire one by the day whenever
we needed one - perhaps once a year on average.
Tony
--
Tony & Moira Ryan,
Wainuiomata, North Island, NZ. Pictures of our garden at:-
http://mywebpages.comcast.net/cherie1/Garden/TonyandMoira/index.htm
NEW PICTURES ADDED 4/Feb/2004
I guess it reflects the level of accidents people have involving trailers.
If there weren't more claims it wouldn't be happening. I've certainly seen
a lot of very incompetent trailer handling over the years - that reversing
while steering the wrong way thing is very counter intuitive.
But there is very little we can't handle between our huge boot, fold down
seats and roof rack anyway. The Renault Kangoo, as I've said before, is a
fine and useful vehicle. Took a bag of hen food, two bags of potting
compost (I'd run out of home made), two bales of straw the day before
yesterday without even having to take the parcel shelf out.
kathryn
