Managing weeds in the garden

What is the best way to manage weeds in the garden?

I have weeds and dandelions growing 2 to 3 feet high in my backyard. I want to remove the weeds and cover with black plastic and mulch. I have it all mowed once every couple of months but what is the best way to suppress the growth. Gardener wants to spray weed killer before he covers and dumps mulch. I don’t want to spray weed killer because my kids play there and I have a lot of fruit trees.
Some people recommend a small flame thrower, lol. See here.
But I think that’s a little too much.
Suggestions please. Thanks.

Synthetic turf.

Buy a rototiller…Rototill once a week instead of mowing…lol

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Will synthetic turf give off rubber smells on hot days ?

I saw people use a black synthetic fabric to cover the ground and the grass just stopped growing. It’s a neat idea and possibly very cheap. I’m wondering whether there is a better color than black. Is green or grey a better color? Green can simulate grass and grey can simulate cement or rock

No, unless you kneel down to smell them…

This is the best way :slight_smile:

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Those pesky dandelions are a pain in the arsenal. You have to pull them with the entire root coming out or they will regrow.

Try to squirt some vinegar on them, cheap and good thing for the environment.

lol @sfdragonboy agreed. Thats what I will do to some of the yard.

You need to pull the weeds before or when they flower. If they are 2-3 ft high, they already spread thousands of seeds.

Too late now. I mowed it all. But will wait for the summer sun to dry them all out before I try any fabric /artificial turf.

I have the same problem to solve. 3-4 ft weeds are now racing to grow taller, it probably grew 1 ft in the past week. Should I wait for the weeds to die in the summer? Or pull it out? Kill it? Anyone has goats to eat these organic weeds? I want to protect my land from harmful chemicals since I may want to develop a second unit someday. This must be a common problem with so much rain this year.

I’m thinking about the weed barrier. Is it a good idea? Which one do you recommend from HD?

http://www.homedepot.com/b/Outdoors-Garden-Center-Landscaping-Weed-Barrier-Underlayment/N-5yc1vZbx4q

I had weed barrier in my previous home. It might have slowed down weed, but I couldn’t tell because always had weed barrier so I didn’t have comparison to without.

Even with weed barrier, surprisingly weed still grows under the fabric and pushes the fabric up.

I was researching renting goats to eat weeds on our lot. The problem can be that goats droppings can introduce new weeds from previous location where goats were before. Supposedly you can ask to have goats kept on a diet but it will not be cheap. With weed barrier you will need to put at least 3 inches of mulch on top.

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  1. Dandelions are edible.

  2. Since I don’t like the taste, and they’re in my lawn (yay–I got permission to put in a lawn :slight_smile: ) I’ve been taking them out by hand and I’m pleased with the results. My understanding is that you have to get the roots, so what I do is to use a very long set of tweezers (7"?) pushing right down on both sides of the root, rotate around the root, then try to pull it up using the tweezers to help pull on the root. I get about 90% of them whole.

PS: The black plastic should kill the weeds anyways after a couple of months. Cut them to the bottom, then put the plastic on?

There’s no way you can defeat nature, simply put it this way, you can’t!

The dumb people “remodeling” our now home used that twine sheet on top of our garden, then…you won’t believe it, topped it with gravel. Once you walk on top of it, you grind the sheet against the ground making the sheet susceptible to being broken by the weeds.

I pull about 30 weeds a week, 40 more will show up next week. I don’t pull them all off, otherwise I wouldn’t have any fun. My back is not appreciative of my efforts.

You need to get a long screwdriver to dig into the very end of the root of the Dandelion, you need to get the entire root or it will regrow.

http://www.finegardening.com/six-tips-effective-weed-control

Thanks @e_z