Weed control in garden

[birdman22]

Any suggestions on keeping weeds down between garden boxes? Previous owner had fabric/wood chips down, that no longer prevent any weeds from coming through. Fabric is completely shot now.

I'm thinking of digging it up, put down new landscape plastic, and gravel paths. I know weeds can grow in gravel too, but looking to get them to a somewhat manageable state to focus more on the boxes than keeping weeds down to be able to walk in the area.

 

[NRA4LIFE]

Put down Casaron or Preen. Both work very well for weed control.

 

[WoodlandCritter]

Avoid plastic like the plague. Future owners of your property will curse your name for generations. Its not a fun solution, but several rounds of stirrup hoeing early in the season follow by woodchip mulch can go a long way towards mitigating weeds.

 

[Jimmy]

I don't like plastic or rock, and I don't like walking barefoot on bark. I hoe close to the vegetables and spray elsewhere. Ground cover material covered by bark is effective and looks nice though. Make sure you source a bulk bark place and don't just buy the small bags.

 

[bigeyedfish]

We've moved away from fabric and now just do wood mulch on top of cardboard. It works well and the cardboard eventually breaks down unlike plastic-based fabrics. We don't spray near any or our plants that are going to get eaten.

 

[ianpadron]

If your raised beds are fully contained and don't need surrounding soil, table salt is the only viable solution. It'll make the surrounding soil unlivable for a looooong time. That's what we have between our 4x8 raised vegetable beds, pea gravel as the substrate.

 

[CorbLand]

Fabric is worthless if you’re going to put bark on top of it. Even more so if your going to walking on it.

If you’re not worried about chemicals, and they are raised beds, ground sterilizer would do the job. Preen also works and is less harmful around plants. Keeping up on it year after year is what makes it all effective. Obviously this is only viable if you aren’t using the dirt you put it on to grow your food. Both sterilant and preen will leach so keep that in mind.

If you’re worried about chemicals, industrial grade vinegar mixed with water is a great weed killer. Spray it on what you don’t want like you would Roundup.

 

[Phaseolus]

The cheap landscape cloth you can buy at Walmart stinks. Commercial grade landscape (poly) cloth will last for many years even with lots of foot traffic.

 

[birdman22]

These aren't really garden boxes, they are a 2x6" with that much dirt in them, but below that is the ground. I wouldn't be able to go the salt or vinegar route if it can leech into the garden bed soil.

Fabric, or in many suggestions cardboard, with bark/mulch on top of it makes no sense to me as bark breaks down into dirt, then is sitting on top of your fabric. And it sounds like a big task to pull back the mulch and replace the card board yearly in a space this size.

I'm not opposed to roundup as I use it in the yard, but i haven't used it in the garden and that does make me a bit skeptical.

 

[CorbLand]

These aren't really garden boxes, they are a 2x6" with that much dirt in them, but below that is the ground. I wouldn't be able to go the salt or vinegar route if it can leech into the garden bed soil.

Fabric, or in many suggestions cardboard, with bark/mulch on top of it makes no sense to me as bark breaks down into dirt, then is sitting on top of your fabric. And it sounds like a big task to pull back the mulch and replace the card board yearly in a space this size.

I'm not opposed to roundup as I use it in the yard, but i haven't used it in the garden and that does make me a bit skeptical.

Your exactly right on the problem with bark over the fabric. It’s even worse when you walk on it. Same goes for rock on top of it. It grinds the rock into the fabric and wears it out.

You could get the really thick, I believe they make it in quarter inch woven, fabric and just lay that with nothing over it. That will last for quite a while.

I haven’t ever seen the vinegar leach really that bad if you use it like roundup but I also haven’t used it much.

Based on what you just described, don’t use ground sterilizer.

 

[LostArra]

I went nuclear around my small raised beds when I realized I didn't need to keep moving a bundle of shingles around my garage.

I may line the inside of my deer fencing with shingles to control the grass creeping in.

 

[wind gypsy]

I use fabric everywhere I dont want weeds. No plastic.

I've used many rolls of this stuff the past 5 years. Mostly on small trees to reduce weed competition but we use it in our garden too and landscaping too. https://www.amazon.com/Dewitt-Sunbe...-1-spons&sp_csd=d2lkZ2V0TmFtZT1zcF9hdGY&psc=1

 

[wapitibob]

depends on the type of weed, but I prefer..
1, propane blow torch (some broadleaf weeds just laugh)
2, gasoline (doesn't work on some grasses)
3, new formula roundup (jury is out till tomorrow)

 

[TreeDux]

These aren't really garden boxes, they are a 2x6" with that much dirt in them, but below that is the ground. I wouldn't be able to go the salt or vinegar route if it can leech into the garden bed soil.

Fabric, or in many suggestions cardboard, with bark/mulch on top of it makes no sense to me as bark breaks down into dirt, then is sitting on top of your fabric. And it sounds like a big task to pull back the mulch and replace the card board yearly in a space this size.

I'm not opposed to roundup as I use it in the yard, but i haven't used it in the garden and that does make me a bit skeptical.

Salt might spread, I doubt vinegar will go very far unless you absolutely saturate the soil. Mostly the vinegar is going to kill what it touches. Both options can work well.
Roundup freaks a lot of people out but I definitely use it sometimes for exactly the kinds of places you’re talking about. The good thing about using glyphosate products is you don’t have to question what you sprayed it on. Simply put, If your vegetables are healthy and thriving(or even alive)you didn’t get any glyphosate on them. There is an entire rabbit hole you could go down with regard to the soil based uptake of the inert products in a glyphosate mix but I don’t.

 

[Blake C]

I just saw something yesterday about a 40% vinegar mix for killing weeds. Google it

 

[LostArra]

Boomer pro tip:
In the 60's high schools marked their football fields' yard lines (10, 20, etc) by spraying a 2" swath with grass killer+a tbsp (actually a splash) of diesel per about 5 gallons (the field maintenance guys weren't chemists but they wanted to do it only once per season.). I've used this formula in sidewalk/driveway cracks and it works well.

 

[aks]

Plant some cover crop. It won't eliminate weeds completely but it will help and it's 100% better than any chemical.

 

[cnelk]

This stuff kills everything.
I use it on my gravel driveways

 

[cnelk]

Now if you just want to control broadleaf use Atrazine

 

[COJoe]

I hate fabric. I just dug up 2 layers in a flower bed in our patio that was fourty plus years old and it was covered in 6 inches of dirty rock. As others said, Preen weed control seems to work good and spraying. I switched to Gorilla mulch from Lowes. It'll feed the ground as it decomposes.