Clearing an Overgrown Garden
Simple, Organic Method to Control Perennial Weeds like Couch Grass
Perennial, persistant weeds make clearing a new vegetable garden very hard, frustrating work. This method gives you weed free soil, as well as vegetables, within a year.
Organic gardeners, who avoid chemical weed killers, often despair when faced with a plot of land choked with persistent weeds such as quack grass or couch grass, bind weed or ground elder. While couch grass has some medicinal properties, and some wild food enthusiasts consider ground elder a tasty vegetable, persistent weeds present a real challenge to organic gardeners as they are very difficult to remove by hand and they re-grow very readily.
Woven heavy-duty horticultural polypropylene weed control matting offers a simple, organic way to kill persistent weeds. Lay overlapping strips of weed control matting over the ground that you wish to clear, for a new vegetable plot, for example. Secure the edges of the matting very carefully, either using specially designed staples or pins, or using rocks or other heavy weights. These anchors must be secure enough to prevent high winds from lifting up the sheets. If you wish, apply compost or other organic matter, such as grass clippings or fallen leaves, to the soil before you lay the weed control matting over the top. The organic matter will rot down and be mixed into the soil by earthworms throughout the year to leave a beautiful, friable weed free soil.
The weed control matting kills weeds simply by excluding sunlight. Water is able to percolate through the weave of the woven polypropylene, and air also reaches the soil, both of which help to maintain the health of the soil microorganism population.
The weed control matting must be left in place for a complete year to ensure that perennial weeds are completely cleared. The most effective way to use polypropylene weed control matting is to lay it down in early spring and not remove it until the same time the following year. Unfortunately this technique does not clear brambles, which can only be cleared organically by physically removing the root system of the plant.
You can grow plentiful crops “through” your weed control matting. Form small openings in the matting by drawing apart overlapped sheets just enough to plant well in the soil, but giving the plant full access to the sunshine and air above. Potatoes, pumpkins, zucchini, squashes, sweet potatoes and climbing beans are all crops which work well with this technique. These crops appreciate the slight warming of the soil thanks to the black plastic, and are sturdy enough to out compete any weeds which try to take advantage of the hole in the weed control sheeting. Only grow on plants that are already well established in pots on your polypropylene covered plot.
After a year, you can move the weed control matting to another part of the garden; the sheeting may be used for several seasons in this way.
