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Vegetable Gardening

st john's wort

15 years ago

hi all,

i'm about to put in a raised bed and the area I'm planning on using is currently a bit infested with st john's wort. i'm wondering if it would be ok to just cover the st. john's wort with the new soil and build the bed on top of it without pulling it up. the reason I ask is that the area is quite large and I tried pulling some of it by hand and it will be quite a chore to pull it all. is it invasive enough that it will start coming up through the ~2 feet of soil I'm planning to dump on top of it?

thanks!

ed

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Comments (5)

thefarmguy
15 years ago
hi is this the saint johns wort with the pretty yellow flowers? often planted for ground cover? cus if it is..do not think you will want to cover it with soil. hopefull it is something other than what i am thinking of. an option is several layers of heavy cardboard and then adding 2ft. good luck
mrpalomar
Original Author
15 years ago
yeah, that's probably what it is. i'm not sure about the flowers since I mowed it down last year because I was worried about how quickly it was growing and found the plant to be rather unsightly. The attached link shows what is growing in my yard. If somebody planted it on purpose I'd sure like to have a little chat with them...

I spent a few hours yesterday trying to pull some of it up
and was able to do approximately 8-10 sq ft in that time. the roots are slightly smaller in diameter than a pencil and boy is there a mess of them. I managed to collect a good 20 gallons or so just from that small section.

i'm wondering if a tiller would be a good option at this point, although i'm not sure if leaving all that root mass in the soil is a good idea, nor am I sure whether a tiller would even be able to cut through it all that well.

ed

Here is a link that might be useful: {{gwi:33647}}
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thefarmguy
15 years ago
hate to tell you this but all you need is a piece of the root to propagate it,,,,it has a red/brown woody stem, and a waxy green leaf, right?
mrpalomar
Original Author
15 years ago
yeah. well I guess i'll see how much I can get by hand and then try covering it with a good weed barrier and a bunch of soil and hope for the best.
thefarmguy
15 years ago
yes might be best to not disturb it and just cover...it is not really my favourite idea but my wife has been using old carpet in some places as a weed barrier.....the photo of the st johns wort looks great,,,not great for veggy gardening but great example of a durable ground cover.

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