I know what you mean and I'm going to watch your thread closely! I share your frustration. I would absolutely LOVE to see the actual garden from your link.

I was thinking about the black plastic idea myself. I put layers of newspaper down and then lasagna style layering on top...but my garden is much smaller scale. My peppers and tomatoes were weed-free last year! I was picking tiny weeds out every day and mulched that area with grass clippings from the yard. I'll never do broccoli again, my bean patch was a weed patch, my zucs, cucs, and pumpkins got attacked by squash bugs....oh, so much to learn!

Green grass clippings for mulch worked very well though....I wondered if my watering was getting thru though. hhhmmm Thanks for posting your question! This year HAS to be better! Right?

Do you visit & weed every day? Do I need a hoe?

Yes.......a great big yes. Staying on top of weeds is the secret....don't let them seed!!!!!!!
Yes, you need a hoe.

Some will say mulch, mulch, mulch, but in the cooler regions, you want the sun's warmth on the soil until mid June[for most crops]....then you could mulch more.

Plastic is expensive and not as eco friendly. It will work well where well manged. I have a lot of area in veggie babies but I love weeding!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Raised, framed beds.

I used to have a 25' x 25' garden patch that was just dirt and plants in a wide row formation. Paths and growing areas filled with weeds, looked a mess and most of my gardening time was spent dealing with weeds instead of enjoying the plants.

Guess what my pathways are made of? Grass. As long as the raised beds are edged, grass won't grow into them from underground and weeding is reduced to very manageable levels.

Switching to framed raised beds was perhaps the best gardening decision I ever made. I have never looked back. Frames *force* organization and they create visual lines to direct the eyes.

That 25x25 area is now a 5x5 sandbox for the kids, a 4x4 compost pile, a 12'x12' garden shed and 4 3'x10' raised beds with 3' pathways between beds and a large enough area between the shed and sandbox/compost pile for a bench to sit on.

I would say the amount I harvest from this area is approximately equal to what the entire garden area used to yield due to weed competition and neglect due to my not wanting to go out there and deal with weeds any longer.

Some stuff I started growing in containers as well and find container growing even more rewarding that ground growing in many ways. Adding containers into the veggy garden is another way to make it more beautiful instead of just utilitarian looking. Containers of veggies can go anywhere and containers of flowers or other visually appealing plants can be strategically placed in the veggie garden.

Well, that is a very ambitious vegetable garden. Have you considered cutting back a bit, so that the area will be more manageable? You could put 1/3 into a cover crop--good for the soil--and plant the rest.
Peas won't stay on the trellis--do you have vining peas, the kind that have tiny tendrils to grab onto things with? If you have the shorter "bush" peas, they won't trellis.
Tomatoes falling over--tomatoes naturally lay around. They have to be tied to a support (that's why we save old panty hose!). Once tied, you can mulch around the base to cut down on weeds.
Squash and melons don't have to be hilled. If you have poor drainage, it is a good idea, but with your soil amendments, drainage shouldn't be a problem for you. Plant your melons and squash far enough apart to let them breathe. You'll still get a nice harvest, even with fewer plants, especially if they are mulched. In fact, almost all vegetables benefit from a good layer of mulch--except corn. For some reason, corn doesn't like to be mulched, I've found.
Visit your veggies daily. I like to take a cup of coffee out early in the morning and see what needs to be done, then when the sun has dried the foliage, I pick, weed, prop and tie. You would be amazed at what a half-hour of messing about in the garden will accomplish.
Finally, it's your garden. Don't think it has to look like something out of Southern Living magazine. The vegetable police will not visit you if you have a straggler here and there, or a weed in a row of beans.
You can plant marigolds with your tomatoes and peas and put Lavender plants in the garden to deter insects. Companion planting will give you a "fun" and lovable vegetable garden. All your flowers don't have to be in the front yard!
I do hope you enjoy your vegetable garden this year. It is so satisfying to harvest your own vegetables and share them with friends and loved ones. Just relax and enjoy!

I wonder if you are one of those people who could grow a potager garden, intentionally mixed flowers, herbs, and vegetables with an eye toward beauty and edibles? It wouldn't be visually boring!

How to Design a Potager Garden

I don't think I could do it myself, since I can hardly figure out three different flowers that would look good and grow well in a pot together, much less combining flowers and edibles. By the end of summer, I have weeds and sprawl, too.

It's no fun if you hate the vegetable part of gardening because it gets out of hand with weeds and vegetable sprawls!

If you aren't interested in going potager in your 20'x30' spot, you might be able to organize your vegetables better, maybe into 4-foot square units separated by paths, mulch heavily to keep down the weeds, be sure to study information about each plant to learn its needs etc. so your plants will be healthy and productive.

Good luck!

Here is a link that might be useful: Garden Web forum - Potager Gardens

You may want LOTS of big stuff, but if it gets overgrown and you HATE it, do you end up getting as much out of it as you should? Despite wanting lots of big stuff, I think you should look into raised beds. Lots of 4' wide x whatever long beds will help keep things neat. You don't compact the ground by walking on it and the weeds are easy to pull. You have paths you can cover, mulch and walk on and if a few weeds grow there you can round-up the darn things if you want.

Get inspired by the potager forum and even the square-foot forum. You don't have to plant in grids - just look at it for ideas.

I had a big garden growing up and HATED it. Now I have a tiny raised bed, just big enough for my husband and me, and love it...but wish I had a few more.

Don't get me wrong, I hate the invasive weeds, but I LOVE weeding. I get to name each weed with a frustration from the day and rip it's pretty little head off.

Don't get frustrated. I know this is the proverbial pot and the kettle,I get destroyed every year by bugs no matter what I do, organically or not,and you have the weeds, but if you manage them daily, you'll be fine. I go outside every night when the man gets home and rip those weeds out. If I keep up with them daily, they don't over run the garden. However, I've still had to google pictures of the first leaves of things I've planted to make sure I'm pulling a weed and not spinach seedling, carrot, cucumber etc. Most of the times, it's followed with an explicative because I might have pulled the wrong thing, but I can always replant the carrot.

Our garden is 30x30 with 30" central path covered with salvaged paving stones and with raised beds that are heavily mulched. Yes there are weeds, but when the weeds are in the path, I can hit them with the weed-wacker, and the weeds in the beds are easy to pull because I can just reach in to the bed of soft soil.
Consider arranging your garden so it's bisected by N/S and E/W paths with beds that are easy to reach and with smaller paths inside each quarter of the garden. Then you can plant and rotate easily, and if one bed gets out of control, it'll be localized.
We do have weed issues by the end of the summer, but it doesn't interfere with harvest. Also, I think maybe deer got your corn. I can't grow it because of deer.

Your comment about loving your flower garden really stands out to me. Have you considered integrating the things you love about your flower gardens into your veggie garden?

I bet that, like me, you really enjoy a garden in bloom. I mix my veggies is a variety of fruit, greens, herbs and annual flowers (and a few perennials and bulbs that somehow found somewhat permanent homes there) There are pots and planters which also contain a mix of flowers and veggies. The lines of the beds are curved. There are a smattering of decorative structures. A bench on which to rest and enjoy my surroundings. Nearby is our fire pit. One of my favorite places to be is next a small cook fire, watching the sun set over my garden.

Taking care of a veggie garden is not very different than caring for a flower bed. In my veiw, the biggest challeng is getting out there. But you wll never go out there and care for the garden if you don't like what you see. You'll avoid it and put it low on the priority list. So, make it into a place that you enjoy. Someplace that you want to be.
Kay

Here are some crop arrangements that might appeal to you.

Here is a link that might be useful: {{gwi:32633}}

In my fairly large (40 x 30) permanent bed (not raised), no till vegetable garden I use hay (not straw) on the beds and wood chips on the paths. (No black plastic anywhere) Each bed is 4 feet wide. Around the garden on two sides I have replaced grass with groundcover thymes. Beyond on these two sides are shrub border on one side and very large, deep perennial garden mixed with shrubs on the other.

Very few weeds. A few dandelions now and then. A little hand weeding occasionally around peas or beans, but not much.

Everytime you till, you bring up fresh weed seed. If you establish a no till, permanent bed garden, you'll have some weeds the first few years, and less each year.

lily- You're delusional LOL!

lacey- Not sure what you mean by no-till. Well, I know what you MEAN, but don't the plants prefer nice fluffy soil? Or do you only fluff up a little space where you plant each thing?

And oh, not that I'm going to even USE it again, but is black plastic supposed to be used where you PLANT, or where you WALK? I did walkways last year, but that left space for weeds to grow in the PLANTS. I'm going to use the newspaper/hay/grass/something this year. Am I putting the NP everywhere there ISN'T a plant?

MM, I'm far from having the veggies garden of my dreams either, but here are a few things that have worked for me.

I've read about marigolds and pest control, and have concluded some of it is fact, and some of it is misinformation passed from gardener to gardener with very good intentions. What I know first hand is they make for very good weed control, in the form of mulch. Marigolds planted as a decorative border a few years ago now reseed like crazy throughout my plot. I let them grow until they are just about to flower, then snip the whole plant off at ground level. I lay the snipped foliage around as mulch. I started doing this because I'd heard the real nematode protection from marigolds comes not from the flowers, but from incorporating the foliage into the soil. I don't know if this is true, but I don't have a nematode problem, and I (now) have very few weeds in the garden. If you use this technique be prepared to hoe and pull weeds the first year, but in each sucessive year you'll have fewer weeds setting viable seed, and the weeds will diminish greatly. Be sure to let a few marigolds bloom so they'll reseed next year too. Even as a child I never cared for marigolds, but now that they are working for me, they're mari'"gold" in my book.

Onions are very heavy nitrogen feeders, so even in well amended soil you may need to incorporate an additional source of nitrogen.

Are your melon and squash vines getting pollinated? If not, consider incorporating a few plants of Agastache in your garden. It attracts droves of bees and will greatly improve your pollination. As a side note, I'll mention I've always been afraid of bees. My husband, on the other hand kept bees as a young person. He sold enough honey to put himself through college, so I figure he knows what he's talking about. According to him, if you are in a bee's territory, he will first "bump" you. It is his way of saying "move on." Our instincts don't interpret this as a request, but as an attack, so we swat. Swatting is the wrong thing to do. Simply step away and the bee will leave you alone. It took a lot of courage for me to follow his advice, but knock on wood, I haven't been stung yet. The bees and I garden peacefully together.

And yes, you need a hoe.

Why not look at it from a different perspective?

What do you do in the flower beds? Are they planted in long rows with wide paths between the rows? Probably not.

They are probably put into a bed (possibly raised, but more than likely there is at least some sort of a border delineating the flower bed from the lawn).

Are all your flowers separated by type, or are they interplanted according to what looks nice and/or grows well together?

You need to put as much PLANNING into the vegetable garden as you do with your flower garden. Do you have climbing roses? Do you let them roam free on the ground, or do you have a support for them to climb?

Tomatoes kept off the ground are much more productive than plants that trail all over the ground. (Assuming you have indeterminate) You should provide your tomatoes some sort of support to have them grow up. Different types based on pruning preference, etc.

I would recommend raised beds and instead of planting in long rows, plant in WIDE rows. I would recommend interplanting your crops, rather than just long rows of one type. Most plants actually PREFER to be with certain other crops.

I highly recommend looking into companion planting, square foot gardening and raised bed gardening. Weeding has to happen as much as possible. Weed seeds are going to be EVERYWHERE in the traditional row garden. You even have a ton of weeds in the walkway. This just unsightly, and a ton of work to weed. Conversely, if you used beds and wide rows, you could put down some wood chips between the beds and not have to worry about weeds there!

Sometimes we only grow things the only way we have seen...expand your horizons and see a lot more.

If you notice the garden you linked, it has smaller sections and they are not exactly planted in rows. They have a rhyme and reason for why they planted that way. If your beds are a mere 4 feet across you would have access to every area of the bed, without having to step in it. Your plants will prefer it, and the weeds will be easier to pull.

You might not want to go completely to any particular "method" of gardening, but experiment a little with a different method with a small plot of your garden, and see how it works for you. Everyone is different, you need to find what works for you. It's obvious that you are NOT enjoying your current method, so try something else.

I use a combination of square foot, companion, 3 sisters, and raised beds. I don't do the same thing for all my plants. IMHO, different plants have different needs and preferences...find what works for you and them. Start small and your enjoyment will increase. And yes, you have to be IN your vegetable garden everyday (or at least every other day). But, that's part of the fun to me. It doesn't have to take long. A quick sweep for weeds, pests and new blossoms/small fruit/harvest doesn't have to take too long. Make it an enjoyable time and TALK TO YOUR PLANTS. If you talk to them, you will grow more attached to them, and consequently WANT to spend more time with them. (I know it sounds crazy but it really does work!)

I have raised beds and that has helped a lot. I use to have one big garden and it was harder to maintain. I also plant flowers in among the vegetables. It cheers me up and adds visual interest. And I like weeding every day.

Here's more info on No-Till gardening Mary, Mary...

It's based on the idea that good soil is built and not dug.

Here is a link that might be useful: Building Fertile Soil

I have 500 square feet of raised beds with little weeds. I do not a weeds to the compost nor do I use fresh cow manure which is full of weed seeds. The dirt is soft and no tilling is needed. There are times plants will escape the beds but a little trimming and a few ties pull everything back in control. Walk ways are grass which tickle the toes. It can be very pleasant watching vegs grow.

I agree with everyone else, you need to plan. Get out some graph paper and doodle! I did that on paintbrush, just thinking of your garden and how neat it would be to have that much space! You could have some areas planted in rows, like the corn, and other's planted in smaller raised beds and have a long bed with a trellis for things like cucumbers and pole beans and such! You could border off the planting areas, either as raised beds or just with bricks/edging, etc. and let the paths be grass and mow it with a mower or make the paths with mulch, etc. Edge the planting beds with flowers. Put out a table and chairs to relax.

I envy you the space!

Here is a link that might be useful: {{gwi:32634}}

One thing I have tried and like is to plant in blocks intead of rows. This works well for carrots, beans, onions, basically the root crops and low-growing veggies. There is less wasted space and less weeding when planted in blocks. Check it out on the internet.

Do you have a bagging lawn mower? If so put all your grass clippings in the garden to suppress weeds.

Staking your tomatoes is a must because they are too heavy to support themselves. Invest in some good fencing t-posts that are at least 5 feet high. They are about $5-7 each.

My name is Mike but I'll be frank: if weeds take over your garden you deserve it. My garden is about the same size as yours and I have to spend maybe two hours a week early on, much less than that as the plants grow, taking care of weeds. I even let them grow a bit if they are not next to a plant so I can have more stuff to add to the compost pile.

Stake your toms or put cages around them - you'll get much more edible fruit over the year and it will be easier to move through the rows.

I don't grow corn - never seems like a good use of limited space when I can buy 12 ears for $2 at the store in the middle of summer - less if I want to visit a farmers market.

If you have a small rotary tiller, use it, especially early in the year. Till between the rows than use the hoe to cuts weeds between the plants. If you don't have a tiller, rent one.

Don't use plastic between rows - roots grow out from the plant. You are depriving them of moisture.

Know how big plants get. Don't plant tomatoes in rows that are one foot apart or carrots or beans in ones that have 36" from each other.

Mike

You've gotten some great advice here. I'll just second the advice to build raised beds in there and try square foot gardening.

A 6"x8' long board is about $4 and it'll take three of them to make a 4'x8' bed. If you don't have any tools, this is still doable. Ask the lumberyard to cut one of the three boards in half ~ those will be your ends (they'll make one cut for free). Then all you have to buy is a hammer and some 16-penny nails, or a drill and 3" decking screws (drilling in screws many times is easier and makes for stronger connections, so might be worth the twenty bucks for a cheap drill) and assemble them when you get home. It's super easy to make the beds if you first shovel a few inches of soil from your walkways over into where you plan to put the permanent beds. Then, assemble the wood frames around those long piles and rake them down. No extra fill dirt needed. (Do stand back and look after you get the long piles done ~ it's funny to see your garden looking like Boot Hill the day after the gunfight. ;)

I did some quick calculations and you can fit a LOT of beds in your space!
{{gwi:32636}}
That's how many will easily fit, leaving a few feet extra on one end. Those are all 4'x8' beds with three foot wide walkways horizonatally and 2' wide walkways vertically. It's very important to have nice, wide paths that are easy-peasy to get down with a wheelbarrow or garden cart or you'll be back to hating working in your garden. Making them wider if you want wouldn't be bad either ~ you have plenty of room. The vertical ones need not be as wide as the two main ones since you likely won't be hauling a wheelbarrow down those, though if you think you will, by all means take out a line or two of beds and make them winder.

Dress it up somewhat by leaving out a couple beds in the middle and putting a pond or fountain in with a bench so you can enjoy being out there. Maybe adding an arbor in one corner over a sitting area would be nice ~ just cut out another one of the beds over there. Want a compost pile, potting bench, or whathaveyou? Omit a bed or two and put it in. Make it pretty out there and you'll be more likely to be in it more, thus staying on top of things and not letting them build up into bigger problems that make you hate it again.

Put a fence around your garden, too. Even just an ornamental one. It defines the space and makes it easier to keep the inside organized. It'd be nice to put a 2' wide bed all the way around the edge of the garden, too. That way, the fence can double as a trellis. Again, just shorten some of the beds, or rearrange them.

You don't have to build all the beds in one year either. Just do as many as you can afford, then plant the rest in bush beans, a cover crop, blocks of corn, or melons ~ they'd have plenty of room to sprawl.

Buy some concrete reinforcement wire to make tomato cages out of. Cut it into 6.5" pieces, form into a circle, and wire together ~ cut the bottom wire off leaving the vertical wires for legs to stick into the soil to help "stake" the cage in place.

Learn about square foot gardening, either on the forum here about it, the website devoted to it or buy the book. It's really a nifty technique. You don't have to use the soil mix recommended, especially since you likely have enough soil already ~ just use the planting guidelines. It'll help you plant more intensively, which keeps weeds down and moisture in since the plants are so close together they act as a living mulch. And SFG encourages you to plant things all in together instead of blocks or sections of each type of veggie. Doing it this way, with bush beans under your okra, lettuce tucked in snugly beside your kale, etc., makes the whole thing look prettier.

Lay out some more of that concrete reinforcement wire atop your wooden beds and nail in place, lining up the wires with the sides. Then, use some small bolt cutters to cut out sections of the wire to make 12"x12" squares instead of 6"x6" and you'll have your square foot guides all done and will be ready to plant. Here's a bed done that way already, with a few other size planting guides laying atop the main one:
{{gwi:32637}}

And definitely plant flowers in there. Lots and lots of flowers! Yes, they attract pollinators and other beneficial insects, and because some kinds do deter other pests. But mostly plant them just because. As one of my fave quotes says: "Vegetable gardens feed your body, while flower gardens feed your soul."

Gah! I'm tired and didn't proofread my post. Lots of typos, but one I thought needed to be pointed out and fixed. About making those tomato cages with the CRW:
"Cut it into 6.5" pieces, form into a circle, and wire together" That should be 6.5' as in FEET. LOL! 6.5 inches would be a mighty thin tomato cage. ;)

For the record, here's the space, as seen from the top of a pile of loam in my backyard. That's the compost pile, and beyond that is the veggie patch. You're looking east.

{{gwi:32638}}

DH wasn't thrilled about the idea of the raised beds, but he doesn't get the whole point of "I need something that makes this garden not be a place that I'm just not interested in going." I actually LIKE weeding. I spend a LOT of time in the front yard on the flower beds, and I get results. I know that the reason for the 'mess' is lack of attention. His point was that we don't live in suburbia; we live in the country, and sees it as a city thing. (rolleyes) Course, he also mentioned that it didn't matter what he thought cuz he knew that I'd just do what I wanted anyway...

The chore of keeping the weeds out of the plants by virtue of the pathways not being 'part' of the beds would seem to be made much easier with the addition of the raised beds.

Oh, and apparently I DO own a hoe. Who knew.

Now my questions:

-Cucumbers will actually grow up a trellis? I'm assuming they need to be tied to it like a tomato does?

-What about squash? Specifically those GIANT plants that yellow crookneck produce. Seems to me these smallish beds aren't taking these big honkin plants into consideration? Or maybe I've just been planting too many that they take over 1/2 the garden.

I tend to 'overplant' I guess. I overcompensate for such things as low/no germination, critters, rot, etc. Someone mentioned that the harvest from a larger, non-tended garden is likely equal to a smaller garden that is well cared for. That's a good point.

I guess I'll be investing in the lumber yard.
Oh, question: Do any of you remove your beds at the end of the season so that you can till it all under and start again next season, or do you leave all the beds there til they rot away?

" Course, he also mentioned that it didn't matter what he thought cuz he knew that I'd just do what I wanted anyway... "

Good man! LOL!

Cucumbers definately trellis and do NOT need to be tied. They hang on with little tendrils.

Summer squash (crookneck, zucchini, pattypan) do take a LOT of space. Probably a square yard each. BUT - if you plant them close together (like every 5 feet) they'll shade out the weeds pretty well. And they produce a LOT! Maybe crookneck not as much as zucchini, but you'll get a lot of produce off a few well-tended plants.

You don't need to move your beds - those boards will last a LONG time. My own bed is landscape timbers - they'll last even longer. Before you spend a ton on lumber, check freecycle and see if anyone is giving any away - it doesn't have to be new to fill in with dirt. ;-) With raised beds you don't need to walk around with a tiller. Make your boxes narrow enough you can reach the center without walking on it (4' is standard), start with it all nice and loose and fluffy and it won't get compacted if you stay off it. At most you'll want to get a shovel, or your hoe now that you've found it, and work the soil inside the boxes to losen it up.

Check into vertical gardening for your vining plants. Tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, beans, peas, etc. all perform BETTER vertically than they do horizontally. By growing off the ground, you don't have to worry about losing your produce to rot and ground pests. By growing off the ground, you increase air circulation around the plant and that improves health. Improved health and less contact with the ground also prevents pests, who are many times attracted by stressed plants.

As far as raised beds being a "suburb" thing, I'm sorry to say that your husband is wrong. The raised beds date back to the medieval age! The kitchen garden (which is essentially what you are trying to grow) was close to the house and in many cases had raised beds!

Excerpt from linked website below:
"Her mother's garden has raised beds, the soil around the small cottage is filled with rocks, and so she spent a summer's day sifting through the clay and rocks with her mother, preparing and building foot high beds arranged in a large square. The soil in master's garden has been tilled many times over; the gardener has all day to do it, as this is his primary job around the grounds. The dirt paths through the vegetable rows are packed hard, and the cook keeps talking about asking the master to put in brick, but she never gets around to actually asking him."

Here is a link that might be useful: Medieval kitchen garden info

eagle- what a fun article that was- very interesting! I love stuff like that. (insert contented sigh, but remembering that they also didn't have indoor plumbing...ok, flash back to present day)

We're not much for herbs...mainly because I'm not a good cook. I have no interest in cooking. I like gardening, so I'd love to GROW herbs, but I have no use for them cuz I don't know what to do with them. But I bet a little herb garden would be fun to grow. But I digress...give me a tomato, corn cob and a side of summer squash any day...I'm so there.

Ok, well, I think I've taken up enough of your time; I'll take myself over to the potager forum where I guess I belong, and set this thing up.
Thanks for all the help!