No-till, straw layer?

[KTurner]

We have different sections of garden that we've been tending to, some of it new this year and the oldest started in 2009. I've been tilling before planting, but I think that just makes the wire grass stronger and multiply. I've seen some videos online where people apply a thick layer of straw to prepare and kill the grass/weeds/etc (rather than till or plow), then leave the straw in place and plant under it. What I've seen so far is mainly people talking about starting, without much info on the results.

Anyone have experience with this? How well does it handle wire grass? I'd have to buy straw from somewhere if I wanted to try this. How much straw is normally used to start?

Keith

 

[Chuck52]

Read up on lazagna gardening to see what can be done.

Chuck

 

[ustmd]

We have used moldy hay and cardboard as a grss/weed block here in Central TX. It works pretyy well. A layer of cardboard (or newspapers) + 3 or 4" of hay.

To really prepare an area we will cover the hay/cardboard with a layer of black plastic to get the heat going.

 

[schmism]

I thought i heard this can also be accomplished with layers of wet newspaper. Spreading the newspaper out over the entire area and then pokeing holes in it were you plant....

 

[Duffster]

We have different sections of garden that we've been tending to, some of it new this year and the oldest started in 2009. I've been tilling before planting, but I think that just makes the wire grass stronger and multiply. I've seen some videos online where people apply a thick layer of straw to prepare and kill the grass/weeds/etc (rather than till or plow), then leave the straw in place and plant under it. What I've seen so far is mainly people talking about starting, without much info on the results.

Anyone have experience with this? How well does it handle wire grass? I'd have to buy straw from somewhere if I wanted to try this. How much straw is normally used to start?

Keith

I mulch my garden with straw typically after the plants have come up and the ground has warmed up some. I just planted sweet corn and mulched it immediately and just cleared the straw off the row. The straw in the garden has kept all of the weeds and quack grass down very well. Quack grass is a huge problem for us. I have a few odd oats growing but is no big deal to pull when they get a little bigger.

I would highly recommend using a mulch of some sort.

 

[Western]

When I was a teenager, my parents bought a place from an old farmer. He used Newspaper in his whole garden and you should have seen it, one of the nicest I have ever seen, but it only took us 2 years to screw it up!

He would put "allot" of basic news paper then old hay down after his seeds sprouted, at the end of the year he tilled it all in. Amazing soil too. Of course he was retired from the Ft Worth Star Telegram and got overruns for nothing.

May get harder to get "print" paper these day's, but I think straw/hay would do you wonders.

 

[Taylortractornut]

I garden on a red clay hill I started tilling in leaves and compost and straw for this. I also started using pine straw and leaves for mulching after I made my first cultivation with the tractor. It really cuts down on the watering to and builds soil. I have a good humus layer of 12 inches i nthe garden now. I tilled a bed at work the other day and we had a roll of straw. i rolled it out in a 4 inch layer several feet long and planted several cucumber plants in it. Working goon now and leaves the plants cleaner, now water spots or mildew problems. It really cut down the water spot problems on my maters. DOwnside is Varmits like to live under the layer and it will tie up a bit of nitrogen but a lower dressing of manure or compost will help. At work we had a sheet of carboard a sofa box that was blown away before the compactor could get it.


It landed on an old cell that was capped with clay. WHere it landed I laid some rocks around the edges to hold it down to be picked up. Winter hit and it got side lined. THe next spring i picked it up and the earthworms were under it and in it. THe layer under it was pure humus.

 

[forgeblast]

I like useing heavy layers of much. I had some double ground hardwood much left over last year that i used in my planting beds and it worked great. I just forked over this spring and it worked great. I dont use grass from the first spring cuttings because it has so much seed in it, summer cutts work great. We also have a lot of carboard at work and i use a lot of that to keep weeds down. I keep meaning to use a drill bit and drill holes in a sheet of cardboard to help with spacing plants but I forget until I have the plants in the ground.

 

[troybilt]

good posts.

Mulch is the Work Saver. Hay is everywhere in the country side and freely available where i live just for the taking, so we do.

Years ago, i did not mulch and my Garden was really a weed field if you could find the vegies. But i was mostly too busy and was glad to get a few things out of it.

Tomatoes were a fave, so i concentrated on how to make them grow better. We would pull the hay growing everywhere around us with our hands and pile it in a wheel barrow. This was neatly piled under every tomato plant and allowed my plants to grow bigger with less water and virtually no weeding.

We then got more tomatoes than needed, much more. i thought to try this on Cucumbers and the same thing happened, great Cukes and way too many of them. A little water was all that was needed on hot days; sometimes i would just spray mist the leaves and they would perk up after 5 or 10 minutes.

This could be what they call 'Foliar Feeding' but i was just using water. The local Dairy has tons of compost free and this year i got some. Again, this amplified the effects of the mulch and my garden is the best it has been in 23 years.

Also don't see bugs destroying my potatoes and tomatoes. Rodale says that bugs generally don't want to eat healthy plants, but prefer the sickly ones. i note how my neighbors are all growing with chemicals, pesticides and what not. i would rather not, and why should i when the stuff i use is Free and works better?

The Road less traveled, it has made all the difference. :thumbsup: