With the exception of a few feet near one fence, the entire garden is covered first by ground cloth, then by mulch. The intention was to keep weeds at a minimum. That has worked well except for crabgrass. It is undaunted by anything, growing up through the cloth. I have been trying to remove it the hard way but cannot get to most of the roots because of the cloth. Assuming the cloth is pulled back and roots removed, would it be better to use a heavier cloth topped by mulch or no cloth at all?
I use black plastic and mulch, nothing grows through that. I have used cardboard and mulch but after a year or so it composts and the weeds take over again. I have tried that cloth and found it a waste of time and money, you have to pull it all up to get the roots of the weeds that just laugh at it as they pop up through it.
I think crabgrass is similar to cockroaches in that it will survive anything. And crabgrass is just about as useful, too. Ugh. Does the black plastic come in rolls? Is it readily available at a place like Home Depot or OSH? If there are different weights, which would be the best to use?
I get mine at Lowe's but I believe Home Depot should have it too. Yep in a roll and it comes in a gardening thickness and contractor thickness. I bought the contractor thickness for a portion of the front yard and nothing grows through it unless you cut a hole and plant something. Depending on where it is you might want to poke a few hole for drainage but I have it in the fenced in herb bed covered with mulch and haven't had drainage problems.
We bought aHUD house located on 1.6 acres. Needless to say, what few flower/bushes there were have been overrun with weeds. And crabgrass is the ultimate, most prolific weed of the bunch! I purchased a good, strong weed barrier. As I clean out a bed, I allow it to stay uncovered for about a month. Then I go back in, re-weed (making sure I dig down to get those pesky roots out) and then - where I can safely do this - spray Roundup Extended Control heavily. After the Roundup has soaked in, I lay a double layer of weed barrier, first layer one direction & second layer 90 degrees differently than the first layer. I make sure my seams on both layers are overlapping by 9” to 12” and my second layer has no seams (if possible) on top of first layer seams. Crabgrass, with it’s far reaching tendrils, will still try to root. But, inspecting these areas every couple of weeks and carefully inspecting where the new culprit got it’s start and eliminating the “feeder” as well as the new start keeps this horribly invasive weed down to a minimum. When there’s more new starts in a particular area than I want to fight with, I will spray with Roundup Extended Control again, making sure I get the sprayer nozzle pushed down on the culprit and dousing it thoroughly. This seems to help.
@Big Red I hope you don't have a well for water. If you do, I would be worried about using Roundup. If you want to use chemicals, what about using a pre-emergent crabgrass herbicide in the spring? Has anybody tried 'solarizing'? I am not even sure how to do it but I have heard it can help.
If by weed barrier you mean the fabric with thousands of tiny holes in it, that stuff is a joke, it just gives the weeds/grass a challenge to see how many can grow up through each of those holes. Solarizing works pretty well, use heavy plastic, you can spray vinegar or an organic weed killer on the area first, then spread the plastic and weigh it down so the wind can not blow it off the area, leave it on for about a year, depending on if you are clearing out weeds or lawn. Some weeds will simply think they are being given a nice warm place to rest and when you peek under the plastic you find they are still growing but have turned white from lack of sun. I removed all the grass from our front, back and side yard by hand, no chemicals, just me on a kneeling pad with a trowel and a bucket for carrying the grass to the large paper sacks you can get at stores for yard waste. There is a section by the driveway that is driving me crazy, the weeds keep coming back but I have a spray bottle with 20 % vinegar to use on those as they appear.
Good for you Toni. You are a trooper. I have had good luck with vinegar too only I have been using it staight! 100 proof. Maybe it's been overkill?
The % is the acidity level. Household vinegar is 4%, agricultural vinegar is 20-30%. I use it straight out of the bottle too but with gloves on.
