Yep, those rhizomes will continue to grow and put out additional grass throughout your bed and take over again. While it is all tilled up, the rhizomes are broken up and are easier to get out - although there will be more to get. When you see the grass start to come up, dig around it and pull up the whole rhizome/root. I have Zoysia grass in the yard I made my garden - and I removed all of the sod before making the beds. I still have the grass get into the area and just have to keep after it. Here is a link that might be useful: BsnTech Gardening Blog

I'm in the Los Angeles area (Topanga Canyon) and I use 1.5-2 tablespoons of vinegar in a 2-21/2 gallon watering can. When I've checked, this seems to bring the pH down to 4.5-5.5 . This amount definitely doesn't hurt my blueberry plants and they look healthy (as long as I water them a lot in hot weather). I also have a 5 lb bag of Soil Acidifier by Espoma which I haven't used very much yet. I bought it either at Home Depot or one of the Green Thumb/Green Arrow nurseries in the San Fernando Valley. The label says it's derived from Elemental Sulfur and Gypsum and is 30% Sulfur. The container mix I use for blueberries is 50% peat moss and 50% Supersoil potting soil. John

Note that the temperature ranges for USDA zones are averages. Zone 5 will sometimes get colder than the average annual range given for it. A plant rated hardy to Zone 5 may be quite suitable for you, depending on how accurately applied that rating was - be wary of commercial sources in particular, some of which seem to pretty consistently base ratings on zone averages rather than the true span of temperatures seen in them. A plant is hardy to -20F so they list it as being hardy to whatever zone has a range of average lows that includes -20F. This will work until it gets below -20F - which it will someday if the plant was put in a -20F to -10F area. Grass all through perennials is either dealt with by digging everything up, washing the soil off and separating out the grass by hand, or spraying the whole mess with herbicide and starting over. Or digging it all out and dumping it down a hole.

I have grass weeds choking my 70' x 70' organic garden. My beds are raised except for the blueberries and fruit trees. I've tried cardboard, newspaper etc. The problem is that each year I have used manure to fertilize and and straw for mulch - there must be a lot grass seed in both and in the end it looks like I've been planting grass. Some questions: The horse and sheep manure has been free (compost is not easy with my 8' snowy winters). Anyone else use manure? Do you have grass seed issues with it and what do you do? I am looking to get a chipper and replace the straw with wood chips (cedar, hemlock, pine). I'd like to put down weed cloth and cover everything with chips. Good idea? Will the chips be OK for vegetables, fruit trees, blueberries, etc? The blueberries, strawberries, and asparagus in particular are sooo hard to weed the grass out of. I don't have endless hours. I'm thinking of starting over with the strawberries, but the blueberries and trees needs a solution. The grass is so intermingled with the roots of the blueberries. I'll need to tear apart the ground around the very multi-branched stems (with some new blueberry shoots). I'm concerned it will harm the roots and kill the shoots. Thoughts? Ideas? I was gone for much of last summer and the grass took over. I'm pretty overwhelmed. Thanks for your help.