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Tilted garden taken over by weeds

Last year I brought in 11 yards of fresh dirt/compost for a new garden. My garden was pretty much weed & grass free last summer. This past spring I rented a larger tiller and went over the whole entire garden. Within a month of planting my garden was taken over by weed and grasses. My dad told me what I had done was the worst thing possible for weeds, & that I spread a ton of seeds by tilling. Fighting the weeds and grass was a losing battle.

I've been told to lay leaves and plastic over the garden and that the weeds won't come back next year. Will this work or is there something better I can do?

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  • nutcutletnutcutlet Posts: 27,445

    The thing about gardening is that weeding is a permanent feature. The tiller will have made the spread of perennials like twitch grass and ground elder worse but annual weeds will turn up whatever you do.

    You have to try and convince yourself that you enjoy weeding.image



    In the sticks near Peterborough
  • I know I'm going to have to do some weeding. They just got so bad that they choked everything. I don't want to dump a bunch of chemicals in my vegetable garden. I also do not want to listen to bad advise again as how to deal with them. Tilling it was obviously bad advise, but it sounded like a good idea image

  • Mrs GMrs G Posts: 336

    There is no quick and easy cheat way to do it if you want to use that land within the next 2 years.  You will need to turn the soil with a fork and pull out all the thick roots you see putting them in a bucket and getting rid of them.  My Mum had a new build about 15 year ago and I remember doing this job on heavy clay with my Mum and Grandad.after you've done that you can cover it with heavy black polythene sheeting to keep the annual weeds out or from germinating until you are ready to plant.  

  • DovefromaboveDovefromabove Posts: 88,139

    I'm afraid I'll have to disagree about the polythene.  I don't see the point of stopping the weedseeds germinating until you are ready to plant and/or sow in your veg patch - only for them to all spring into life when you've sown/planted. 

    If you have a good sharp Dutch hoe and spend 5 or 10 minutes with it whenever you see those tiny cress-like weed seedlings appear during mild spells in the winter, by the time you're ready to get sowing/planting, a large proportion of the weedseeds will already have germinated and been dealt with.

    Then, sow your seeds in rows and mark them, and continue to hoe between the rows - that will get most of the weed seedlings.  All you have to do then is remove any that have sprung up in the rows when you thin out your veg seedlings.

    Keep your hoe handy image


    Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.





  • chickychicky Posts: 10,409

    I convince myself I like weeding by pretending I am harvesting a crop .... for the compost heap (although don't put the perennial nasties on there)

  • LoxleyLoxley Posts: 5,698

    Annual weed seeds are easy enough to get rid by hoeing. I like that sort of weeding. Perennial weeds - creeping buttercup, nettle, dandelion, bramble, ground elder etc, are a different story. Hoeing or digging them out just seems to stimulate new growth! I don't like relying on chemicals but 'pernicious weeds' really are best sprayed with glyphosate. I would say do the job properly and thoroughly at the outset and save yourself hours of time fighting a losing battle in the future. Glyphosate works through the leaves and breaks down in the soil.

    When I inherited a small patch of garden infested with montbretia and ground elder the best course of action would be to spend at least whole season spraying and respraying those plants until they were completely gone. I didn't have the patience for this, and I knew digging them out would leave roots behind that would simply regrow, so I ended up digging out the whole lot and constructing a raised bed lined with weed membrane and filled with a mix of imported clean soil and growbag compost. Time will tell if this has worked!

    "What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbour". 
  • DovefromaboveDovefromabove Posts: 88,139

    If the soil that Erin bought in contained the roots of perennial weeds then she needs to go back to her supplier!  That really isn't good enough image


    Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.





  • LiriodendronLiriodendron Posts: 8,328

    I agree, Dove - but perhaps the perennial roots were in the ground under the new soil Erin bought in?  That might explain why the garden was weed free last season, but became weedy once the tiller was used to mix up the soil.

    Since 2019 I've lived in east Clare, in the west of Ireland.
  • Had to smile at the "tilted garden" - sounds like somebody jacked up one end!

  • DovefromaboveDovefromabove Posts: 88,139

    Liri  image   Erin said that the ground was 'pretty much weed and grass free' last summer - if  live roots of perennial weeds were present then I'd have thought they'd have shown themselves.  If there are perennial weeds there now, and there weren't any before, then they've been brought in.


    Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.





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