If I had Bermuda I wouldn't even try to plant a garden in it until I had devoted an entire summer to Roundupping it. Then I would be sure every summer following to use roundup (carefully, only on a still day) outside the 2x6 border to prevent it creeping back in. If you don't want to use Roundup, you might try covering the entire bed with black plastic for a summer and then religiously weedeating outside the border in following summers.

We made a bed in our bermuda lawn. We dug a ditch and buried colored tin 2 feet in the ground. We never had problems with the bermuda getting in there again.

I spread cardboard over my grass to kill it, then just build raised beds right over it, and mulch the paths with straw (just to cover the cardboard).

You can use something now to kill the grass in and around the beds you want to create: cardboard, old carpet, plastic. Just smother it. It might take some time to die.

Some of the crab and bermuda grass will try to sneak in through the cracks and around the edges, so we try to make sure to overlap and duct tape any cracks.

Jo

I would not try to start a bed at my age without a tiller.

I think you will also have to fight Bermuda from now on, maybe a little, maybe a lot. You may kill it all out but sooner or later it will come back to see you.

You will need tools to fight Bermuda, like Roundup, mulch, a Hand Hoe or Ken Ho Weeder, and for me a tiller.

I started a bed last year, another in early spring and the last on May 14. All are doing well thinks to mulch and a good weeder, mixed with a lot of sweat.

If I were not retired I would find it hard to find time to tend a large garden.

If you cant get the soil in good shape you will have a much harden time with your garden. Planting close also helps keep the weeds down, mulch even does better. I like to plant close and mulch.

If I did not have a tiller I would not even try to grow a garden, but that is mostly an age and health issue.

Larry

We had the best luck doing what Jo does and putting something on top of the grass to smother it. Then, we go through and dig out every stolon we can find. Not much grass has popped up since we did that. The sod cutter we rented for one of our big beds helped a bit on the solid sheets of sod, but I think smothering worked as well and was cheaper. It just depends on how much time you have.

I've thought about burying corrugated metal sheets to keep out the grass--and may do that at some point, but having a wide heavily mulched path around the garden perimeter is working well enough for now. I spend about 10 minutes weeding in each garden space (25x40 ft.) every week--usually as I pick tomatoes.

I hear ya on that soil. I have the same kind of soil, but with a bit heavier on the clay side. I took black plastic, I lift it there for a couple of months (I was in a hurry)the grass is yellow and dead at this point, I pulled it up. I just made three more beds that way and the cotton pickin' grass is coming back in, but I pull it as soon as I see it usually on the weekend mornings. I also plant pretty close together. My large bed (20' x 15') has been planted very close so in the bed the weeds have not been that much of an issue. Now the grass creeping in in the smaller beds is an issue, but weeding them out usually takes me a half hour a week. I am working on the paths now with black plastic to smother them out. (this plastic will stay down for a year)

I am newbie, so take that under consideration....
Hope it helps...

Mulch, mulch, mulch. Even when the mulch doesn't eliminate Bermuda, it eventually loosens the soil to the point that one can more easily (and rapidly) weed.

I have stayed away from Roundup, till this year. I purchased a gallon spray bottle and have used it on the perimeter of parts of the garden. I have to say, grudgingly, that it really helps.

George
Tahlequah, OK

George is so right about the mulch! Even the Bermuda pulls out easily by hand in our heavily mulched beds, where just a few months ago it was rock hard with no chance of pulling it out without a tool.

Tigerdawn, I don't think it really matters how you do it....whether you smother the grass, spray it with Round-up, rototill the soil and rake out all the roots and then spray Round-Up or any sprouts that pop up, etc. What ismost important is (a) you aggressively remove all grass stolons, roots, runners, etc., and (b) you add organic matter to the soil to improve the soil and make it softer so you can pull the grass and weeds and keep keep them out.

We normally either rototill an area, remove the roots, wait a week or two and then repeat that a couple of more times, or we smother and build raised beds atop the plastic. The plastic eventually breaks down, but hopefully by then the grass underneath is really, really gone.

No matter how you build your beds, the most important thing is to mulch well and stay ahead of the weeds and grass. If you let weeds and grass come back in, you'll be starting over again with those particular beds.

If you have clay soil, it will be extra hard to get the bermuda grass out, but you must do it. I remove bermuda grass whenever the ground is soft-enough to dig it out. With clay soil, you can't pull it, you have to dig it, or all you're doing is pulling out part of it and leaving the rest underground. It helps if you leave a wide smothered area around the perimeter of your garden beds. I prefer one that is 4' to 6' wide. Keep that area heaving mulched and spray Roundup onto anything that tries to grow into that mulched perimeter around the garden. If you can keep all the grass and weeds 6' away from your garden beds, it is hard for them to take back that area although you'll still have to fight the weeds and grasses that come from seeds that blow in or wash in.

Some years I have more trouble with weeds than other years. This is a year with lots of grass and weeds, but that's mostly because it is too hot to spend a lot of time out there removing them.

Good luck,

Dawn

Bermuda is a never-ending battle. But you can get a good edge on it. RoundUp works really well at starting the process. Here is how I got mine under control.

The first thing I did was to mow it pretty short. I bagged the grass, too. It will be in the way for now. If you want you can put it in trash bags and it will cook pretty quickly in the sun.

Next, I sprayed the area I wanted to work in with RoundUp. Spray a bigger area than you will need for the garden. The farther away you can keep it, the better.

Once it is good and brown, usually about a week, till it or turn it as deep as you can. A shovel depth is good, that is usually about 10 inches. Be careful not to walk on it after you have tilled or turned it. You don't want to compact the area.

Now, water the area well. The soil needs to be moist for this to work.

Next, lay clear plastic over the area and cover the edges with soil to hold the plastic down. Try to seal it well, you don't want air to get in or heat or moisture to get out.

Last, sit back and watch it cook for 5 or 6 weeks. This will kill just about everything down to 5 or 6 inches. Insects, weeds, fungi, etc.

With the heat we are having here in Okc you should be able to get it good and hot. I have used this many times and it works like a charm. I've attached a link to OSU's fact sheet on the process.

I've had my garden going for several years now. I run the tiller through it set very shallow just to cut any weeds. I hoe occasionally, too. But the best method I've found in established beds is to lay down a newspaper barrier in the spring and then mulch on top of that with grass clippings. My vegs love it.
The last practice I use to keep the weeds out is to only water the plants. If there isn't a plant there then I don't water there. I try to keep the rows dry. Any spot where there isn't something planted does not get water. There aren't too many plants that thrive in dry hot soils. Hope that helps. :)

Here is a link that might be useful: Soil solarization

Honestly, at this point, the Bermuda is under control. The crabgrass has taken over. I was really hoping the thick layer of mulch would stop it but it hasn't.

And spraying round up around the beds is not an issue with the growing veggies? I want to use round up around the beds but worried about it seeping into the soil around the beds...

boy it would be nice if I could!!

Ezzirah,

I just don't know what to say about that question. My son, who is in veterinary med, tells me that, chemically, the stuff breaks down, leaving no residual. I have had a hard time believing this, and hence I've resisted using it. But this year I got desperate and decided to use it a bit. I am most open to using it in order to start a new bed, since I don't plan on using it regularly. Perhaps someone else has better understanding and perhaps some data.

What I do know, is that when we moved onto this place (where we live) the previous owners used pesticides and Roundup, etc. We had almost no amphibians on the place. A year after we arrived, and didn't use those things, we have/had LOTS OF THEM. Was it the switch to organic methods, or was it something to do with the drought? I don't know.

George

Ezzirah, I use Glyphosate, 41%(same as Round Up) every year for the past 4 or 5 years. I buy whatever brand is on sell. I use it pretty much any place I would use a weedeater except around my garden, that I weed by hand.

When I use Glyphosate I use very low pressure and make a small scattered stream coming out of the sprayer. Glyphosate can be carried by a very light breeze and do great damage to your tomatoes.

I dont like to use Insecticide, and I have a good crop of toads.

Larry

Ezzirah,

Roundup is not active in soil and is not taken up by plant roots. In order to kill a plant, the Roundup must make contact with the leafy part of the plant. Roundup isn't mobile in soil and breaks down in just a few days.

If you spray on a very still day with no wind, air should not carry the Roundup into your beds.

If you have a pond with frogs, toads, etc. be careful about spraying it near that pond because it is linked to deformities in frogs.

If you're really worried about spray hitting your garden foliage (and it does happen), instead of spraying, use a paint roller or foam paint brush to paint it onto the grass you want to kill.

Dawn

I know the neighbors thought I was crazy (what else is new?) but I "mopped" my weeds with round-up. I'm picking & choosing my energy-busters these days & the weeds had really gotten away from me, so I bought a sponge mop at Dollar Tree, mixed the round-up in a kitty litter bucket & swept the weeds wherever they weren't too close to the flowers with the mop. A couple of days later I covered everything (dead weeds) with grass clippings. The wind really never stops long enough around here to make me confident to spray. At this point it seems to have worked.

For borders where grass creeps in, we've had great luck with mounded raised beds. You dig the soil out of the path and into a mound where the bed will be, then fill the path with mulch. This does a good job of keeping the grass from taking over the border around the bed. This has worked really well for us since we don't use any chemicals. It has the added bonus of making for much better drainage in our clay soil and a looser top layer for the plants in the beds.

I got a good chuckle out of mopping the grass, but hey if it works, it works. I am glad to hear this. But taking care of the borders around the beds have been a mini nightmare until I get the time to finish xeriscaping something has to happen.

I guess I am off to the dollar store for a grass mop! I love it!

Patty,

I love the idea of mopping that Roundup onto the weeds. I'll file that one away to try the next time I need to Roundup the weeds around the perimeter of my garden fence.

I'm lucky in that we are so far away from neighboring houses that my neighbors can't see me in the garden unless they're driving directly in front of our property. I'm sure I've given them lots of laughs over the years as they drive by. One year, the guineas went crazy running down the road, so I took off after them....with a garden rake in my hand and a straw hat on my head. (I looked like a scarecrow running up the road behind them.) Then, the cats followed me, and that made the dogs curious, so they followed the cats. I finally got the guineas turned around and headed home (still in the middle of the road). When we had traveled several hundred feet and were almost back to our driveway, here came my neighbors creeping along in the pickup---and I know they were laughing at the sight of me 'herding' guineas, cats and dogs up the middle of the road. I know they were laughing because I could see them laughing as they drove carefully past us, taking great care not to run any of us off into the bar ditch. After that, I figured seeing me in my pajamas in the garden wasn't a big thing by comparison.

When you're a gardener, life is never dull.

Dawn