Hi, Gayla,
my husband kind of feels the same way, butdoesn't have a lot of time and
interest for the garden. 2 years ago I was pregnant and had a hard time with
garden work, so weeds ran wild and Joseph did the mowing. He ran over quite
a lot of plants that weren't grass, including a grapewine and a gooseberry
bush, and after he killed all of my beans, I staked the korners of the food
garden beds, which he then declared weed reservations. He always suggested
to mow them, but I did find some Tomatoes and such between the weeds. My mum
came over some weeks before baby was due in summer, and pulled all the
quackgrass, bindweed, potentilla and ranunculus that were crowding out my
garden plants. The difference could be seen almost instantly with some
plants, i.e. we got some strawberries in autumn, where we hadn't gotten any
all summer with the strawberry plants hidden in between quackgrass and
potentilla. In autumn I did put newspaper in some places in the food garden,
which helped with the weeds, though the quackgrass did poke through and I
had to remove that by pulling. Joseph didn't like the look of the newspaper,
so I hid it under autumn leaves or grass. I had run a trial the year before,
some of which didn't work because I had left spaces for the existing
strawberry plants, or because too many slugs were hiding under the
newspaper. This year I will put newspaper in one bed where I hadn't yet put
any, the others are sufficiently clean so I will just put leaves and hand
pull the weeds. I put lots of nasturtiumsin between the big crops to
minimize weed problems, that worked pretty good. I also had some bush beans
for quick ground cover between my tomatoes, before the nasturtiums get
going. Worked pretty well where the beans didn't get eaten by slugs. Joseph
still thinke my garden beds look weird because everybody around here has
bare soil, but he leaves them alone.
In the flower gardens, we agreed on pine bark mulch to start out with, and I
put plenty of plants to crowd out the weeds (which obviously I do have to
pull). I haven't renewed the pine bark mulch since last year, since in many
places, plants grow close to each other, if not crowded, and I can hide most
of the spent flowers I cut under or behind the ones that are left/growing,
except now in autumn, and since there were many things flowering this year,
he didn't complain too much.
Don't have an all-around solution, just little bits that worked...
Uta Moerschell
Rue de Com?raz 13
1971 Grimisuat
Switzerland
moerschell@vtx.ch
http://geocities.com/moerschell
Tel +41-27-203-7404
Fax +41-27-203-7424
One problem with using grasses in this way is their
allelopathy....putting out a chemical that inhibits the growth of other
plants. Now...having said that...I do realize that bermuda does allow
other plants
crowds them out. IOW, I see problems in this approach.=20
Try it, though, and do let us know how it works out for you.=20
Gloria, Texas
US zone 8a
--- In GardeningOrganically@yahoogroups.com, "Gayla Roberts"
> I am working towards mowing instead of tilling for the proposed melon
patch.
> Using drip irrigation, the weeds will not abound. I am going to work
> amendments into each melon hill, not prepare the whole area for
planting.
Until we have cameras that show us what we are talking/writing about on
these groups we have no way to get it exactly right, Gayla. You are an
intelligent woman who has knowledge of such things...trying hard to
educate your dh. It takes time. Boy, don't I know that for sure!
Do it the way that is best for you...then tell us how it worked out. I
always take what I read, hear, etc, and experiment with it myself.=20
Every microsystem is different from almost all the others. This means
even in our own gardens. I don't think we can ever say for certainty
that this is the only way to do something....write it in blood. All we
can do is recommend.=20
Gloria, Texas
US zone 8a
--- In GardeningOrganically@yahoogroups.com, "Gayla Roberts"
> This year my DH had a heart attack in June, so rototilling was out
for the
> season. Various weeds grew uncluding the dread Bermuda grass. My
peppers are
> still loaded, my tomatoes are still loaded, squashes abound. The
worst case
> of weeds was where a drip line was cut and leaked. The garden was
very
> limited in variety, but what we grew, really did well. Carrots,
beets, swiss
> chard, zinnias and so forth. No crop failure with anything except
some
