How to deal with Bermuda Grass in my vegetable garden?

11 years ago

Last year we had a partially successful garden. Biggest problem was the bermuda grass invasion. This year we had the soil worked up, we planted the crops out, but did nothing to address the bermuda grass. It's starting to poke through all over the garden. I'm wondering what my options are. My father suggested black plastic with soaker hoses under it. I live in middle Tennessee. Would the soil become too hot under the plastic?

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Comments (7)

Donna
11 years ago
I would think that it would become too hot in midsummer under black plastic in TN. It certainly would be here in MS.

First, do you have your garden positioned so that grass cannot run into it? Black plastic edging makes an easy and inexpensive first line of defense. Until you block its entry you are fighting a losing battle.

Bermuda grass doesn't like mulch. Assuming your garden is planted, I would dig as much as possible while it's small and the soil is still loose, then put down a thick layer of mulch over the entire garden.

If you haven't planted yet, it will be easier. Cover the entire garden with cardboard or ten sheet thicknesses of newsprint (not the glossy colored sheets), then top that off with several inches of mulch: chopped leaves, grass clippings, pine straw, whatever you can get. Shredded bark works too.

Then open up holes in it to plant. Probe around with your trowel to be sure there's no grass roots right in the hole. Then be VIGILANT about pulling out any that appear.

The good news is if you stay with it, it gets less and less over time.

I promise you this works. Last year, I covered an established lawn area with cardboard and mulch and planted into holes. There was virtually no grass all summer, and I pulled what there was. I added another several inches of mulch last fall. There is none whatsoever this year.

Roundup will kill Bermuda, but I personally wouldn't want it in my veggie garden. Just saying.
seysonn
11 years ago
There seems two issues here. One: Grass is entering the bed. Second: It is already in the bed.

The solution to the first , as already mentioned is to use edge gard. If it is the latter, then you have to patiently find the grass roots and pull them out as far back that you can. Also, as mentioned, mulch heavily. and just be on the look out. When you see grass popping out just get the roots out. Bermuda grass is like mints. It is tough to get rid of it completely.
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Renee, it sounds like you are well on your way. I got some cardboard refrigerator boxes and covered my walkways with them. But the Bermuda grass persists, crawls along underneath, and peeks it's head out along the edges. Every now and then I have to move the cardboard, pull up the long runners, and then put it down again. In my opinion, hoeing Bermuda is counter productive. It's like cutting a head off a dragon and seven more grow on. I have tried Round-up, mulching with grass clippings, covering with cardboard, digging after a rain, and removing the top 2" of the sod. I don't recommend Roundup if you have other things growing nearby because it can drift. I know some people who "paint" it on with sponge-type paint brushes but that seems like a lot of work to me. Roundup has never worked very well for me on Bermuda. It does die back, but it comes back from the root. I think about the best way to keep it at bay is to remove the top 2" of the sod and then cover it with something. The rain separates the cardboard into layers and then the wind blows it around, so ideally if you put down cardboard (or your heavy sacks) and then put mulching material on top, that will keep it from blowing around but it will eventually decompose. And the grass will try to send runners across it, so you will have to be vigilant. I have seen Bermuda root itself into carpeting, I kid you not! I wouldn't waste my good manure on the walkways, but I live in town and I have to beg a friend of a friend for horse manure. If you put anything down on top of the feed bags that grass will grow in, such as dirt, manure, or grass clippings/leaves, the Bermuda will just come in from the edges and grow in it. If you put down boards, you will have slugs and roly-poly's populating on the under side. I weight my cardboard down with a brick here and there, but I haven't found anything suitable for putting on top of the cardboard except more cardboard. I tried landscape fabric, and it didn't hold up to direct sunlight and foot traffic. I have raised beds, and I mulch inside the raised beds with grass clippings. This has worked well for me except in a couple of ways. 1) Freshly cut grass clippings in a layer more than a couple of inches thick will heat up and even start to smoke. It isn't good to pile fresh grass clippings too closely around your plants or they will suffer. We pile our grass clippings in the corner of the yard and apply it after it has "cooked" some. 2) A too-thin layer of grass clippings will only introduce grass seed. So you have to keep adding layers. In the fall, when everything's done, we till in the grass clippings. 3) If you don't till the grass clippings into the soil in the fall, leaving it on top of the soil, it will not decompose over the winter and you will have lost the opportunity to amend your soil. Plus you will have to remove it all if you are going to direct sow your seed, so you can find something that the seed will germinate in. If, however, you till in the grass clippings in the fall, by spring you will have nicer dirt. And more worms. HOWEVER, if you don't mulch again the following year, you will have to be vigilant in weeding as some of the grass seed survives and will germinate. 4) If you mulch to kill out the weeds, you will also be keeping in some of the moisture. This is a good thing most of the time. However, we've been getting rain about every other day here this spring and I have not started mulching yet this year because I think it will keep things too wet. I discovered quite a few earthworms while digging out for my iris bed, which puzzled me because the soil is black gumbo. It wads up on everything when it's wet and when it's dry it's like concrete. Yet there were worms in every shovel full. I always thought finding worms in your soil meant you had good dirt, so I was a little puzzled about that. It sounds like you have a good start on your garden and you have some great resources for manure. I've heard that chicken litter is some of the best manure you can get. Good luck to you. You'll be hearing from many others, I'm sure, there are a lot of people who correspond on this forum that can give you tons of great advice. Me, I'm not an expert, but I've been coming here for over a year now and they have all taught me a lot! --Ilene
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That will work. Put newspaper or card board down and then the grass or leaves. This fall begin collecting leaves. Yours and any others you can find. If you have access to shredded paper, that will work also and feed the worms. Do not use week block are any plastic, as that heats th soil too much.
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planatus
11 years ago
All Donna's advice is great. As an emergency measure, you can mulch with plastic or thick newspapers covered with 3 inches of sawdust (TN is full of sawmills). I have seen this work in a couple of gardens.

Bermuda is such nasty stuff. Some friends in AL ended up covering the ground with plastic and gardening in big containers just to end the aggravation.
ericengelmann
11 years ago
My solution to invasion is to lay large pavers all around the garden border, then set 8 inch deep edging or pavers vertically at the inside edge of the border. The underground horizonal grass runs never seem to dive after they've gone 8 inches. Also makes it easy to run a lawn mower around the garden bed without having to trim.
tdscpa
11 years ago
Roundup.
macky77
11 years ago
EricEngelmann... We have 8x9" (approx.) timbres boardering parts of our garden. The quackgrass goes not only around, but through the wood. I'm liking the vertical concrete paver idea (with bigger pavers), but how do you handle the seams? Doesn't the grass target those spots and get through anyway?

Currently, we pull as much as we can by hand and spot treat with glyphosate here and there. I've pulled two full wheelbarrows of rhizomes this week (my hands are sore!) from the front flower bed (2x50') and I haven't even gotten into the main veggie garden yet. It doesn't matter how much I pull - and I'm getting right down at least a foot, loosening first with a garden fork and then searching every square inch of soil for bits and pieces - it's a never-ending cycle. I think the stuff is unkillable.
sunnibel7 Md 7
10 years ago
I hate to say it, but that's pretty much the only solution for a bed in use-removal over and over again. I was lamenting how 3 years in I am still finding roots in the middle of some parts of my garden... Then we broke some new ground nearby and I got reminded how much worse it was when we started. :) Get something like a hori hori (sometimes sold as a soil knife or garden multi tool) if you are going to tackle it by hand. It makes the job much easier!

I've been told that a good dense planting of soybeans will shade it out, which is great if you are a farmer, and also that sweet potatoes and winter squash plantings will do the same. Haven't tried those methods, though I'm playing with the squash this year. If you want to start a new bed, get the plastic out now and solarize a new spot for about a month around the solistice. We're going to give that a whirl this year too, since we have a honking big sheet of plastic left over from building the hoop house.

And I've taken to rototilling a moat around my garden- a single pass around the perimeter every couple of weeks to help keep the stuff from invading the edges. Since it is already trying, and failing, I feel like maybe I won't be spending a hot august cursing the stuff again. Good luck with whatever method you choose, it will probably be an ongoing battle for life. My goal is just to turn it into a managable chore.

How to deal with Bermuda Grass in my vegetable garden?

Comments (7)

Donna

seysonn

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