When I use newspapers to create a bed, I put my newspapers together in the house (I do 10 to 12 pages/group). I then put my papers in my wheelbarrow and begin to fill it with water. I soak them for a bit and then pick up one set at at time, put some soil, coffee grounds, alfatha meal, compost, then mulch (most of the time it is the pine bark from Walmart but if I have enough I use grass clippings). We have a grinder and create our own mulch most of the times (have trained the neighbors to bring their limbs, etc.) but alas it is in need of repairs. My garden paths are covered with mulch we made from a large pile left by our backdoor neighbor when he trimmed his pecan trees. Mulch lowers the soil temps and it helps to keep soil moist....great for us in Texas where we are in the 100's and in a drought! I have nearly covered most of our backyard with grass clippings from a neighbor's yard. Our yard was 'let go' while my mother-in-law was in the rest home...most of her plants died from lack of water and drought conditions. The weeds are the only things that thrived with careless weeds taller than me. It has taken time but we nearly have them under control; my husband can not believe what a difference the mulching has made. I carry an old kitchen knife with me in the yard and when I spot a weed, it is a goner!

I am the magnet of all that kills plants, but last year, I (almost) nailed it. I get attacked by SVB and mildew every year. I rotate crops, I buy disease resistant seeds. So last spring, we covered each squash/zuke plant with floating row cover built around a little cage, clipped with clothespins. We made a little hose irrigation system set on timers. No bugs getting in there! I went out each morning and hand pollinated. The plants were gorgeous. I read that the SVB only live in moth form and lay eggs for a certain amount of weeks, so I was hoping when I left on a week long vacation in mid-July it would be safe to uncover them and let the bees have their heyday. Well guess who saw her first SVB ever minutes before leaving the house? I squished him and left with a sick feeling that my entire garden was doomed. I was pinching eggs left and right when I came home (and they lay them everywhere not just the base of the stem-thank God I am nearsighted), I caught every single branch and stem before they destroyed everything. So even though they got me, they didn't GET me completely! -um, but the mildew did, I also had squash bugs! This was new for me. For this year, we decided since the plants did so well undercover last year (even in heat) that we will build a nice little "greenhouse" style cover and leave it like that the entire summer. There is a video on youtube how to do it, ours will be much smaller than the video. I don't want to ugly up my neighbor's view of my yard too much. Hopefully this year I will officially win the war :).

I never had a problem with nutsedge until it came in with a load of compost from a reliable source, but I guess the horses had been grazing on nutsedge and had ingested the seeds. I had to resort to a chemical treatment similar to Sedgehammer to get it under control. I believe 'Image' is the product I used. After the initial treatment I kept it handy in a spray bottle and treated it as soon as I saw it. It took a while, but now I only have an occasionally plant pop up here and there. As you probably know the problem with pulling nutsedge is that it breaks off leaving several little 'nutlets' that soon resprout. Sorry, there is no easy fix. You have to keep at it, but maybe try to look on it as an opportunity to get yourself outside and enjoy the great outdoors.

For me, what little result I saw was strictly on annual weeds that sprout from SEED, and like Ann said, only on the warm weather ones. Some of my worst weeds are Winter and Spring weeds, most of them mat-forming, and by the time the weather warms enough for the gluten to be effective, they're going to seed AGAIN. I suspect if your oxalis is perennial that you would see next to no control, since gluten meal doesn’t inhibit weeds that already have root systems. It works by preventing root growth in seedlings that have just sprouted, sooooo if there's a perennial root/crown/bulb it does nothing but fertilize them (corn gluten is full of nitrogen). Oh...P.S. I haven't heard anything about gluten being anti-fungal. That would be interesting.