Ok, Girlfriend -

That is a very managable plot...even for someone with as much on their plate as you have! It can be a wonderful retreat for you at the end of your busy days...or a good place to start your day before the world gets CRAZY! I speak from experience!!!

Looks like the first thing you need to do is get that grass out of there. That might mean getting it really wet and yanking it by the roots. (good therapy!) Crab grass is going to work it's way in, but a pronged fork should be able to keep it in check. Then MULCH, MULCH, MULCH. If you want to wait for the end of the season, that's okay too. Pull everything out all at once! Next, get some peat moss and some manure and stir it in with your dirt really good. Go ahead and put a good thick layer of mulch on top of that. Your soil level looks a bit low. Let it set over the winter and as soon as green appears next spring (weeds, that is), get out there and turn it all over again! Maybe catch a neighbor with their tiller out already? Then plot, plant, mulch and next year - that sad picture will be a distant memory! Put a few flowers out there too!!

Maybe just for now, divide it into sections in your mind and weed one every other day? Good luck and keep us posted!

Paula

Tigerdawn,

It sounds like you are overloaded and stressed and the garden, which ought to be somewhat relaxing and enjoyable, currently is adding to the stress.

What I think that you need is a low-maintenance garden. It will require more work at planting time, but if you do it right at planting time, the garden will require less work later on.

First, this fall, take the time to remove all the dead vegetation, including weeds and grass. This is very important because dead vegetation can harbor diseases and pests that will plague you next year. Dead weeds can harbor pests and, if they went to seed, will give you lots of weeds next year. Then, buy a roll of 4 or 6 mm plastic. Wet the ground down well, lay down the plastic on it, use boards or something to hold down the edges of the plastic and leave the ground covered all winter. This is called solarization and will help to kill disease pathogens and weed seeds.

Solarization may not help kill bermuda grass stolons and roots if you have them in your garden, so remove them first. The easiest way would be to rototill the garden when it is through producing and rake out all the bermuda grass, stolons and roots. If you solarize your garden, you should have less trouble next year with any weeds that sprout from seed. That will help.

In late winter or early spring, uncover your garden bed. If it needs to have anything like compost or manure added to it, do that and then put down a heavy-duty, woven landscape cloth. You DO NOT want the cheap landscape fabric that has millions of little perforated holes to let water through because they also let weeds and grass through. Use landscape staples to hold down the fabric. Then, pile up 2" or more of mulch on top of the fabric. At this point, your garden is a big block of mulch, but it is not full of weeds, so that is progress!

For all the plants you'd normally direct seed in the ground, like corn and maybe squash, start the seeds yourself 2-4 weeks before your anticipated planting date. Use the little paper cups sold to use in bathroom dispensers. Cut the bottoms out of the cups. Line them up in a flat. Fill with a sterile, soil-less seedstarting mix like Jiffy Mix. Plant your seeds. Water. Keep an eye on them and don't over or under water.

At planting time, rake back the mulch from the area where you're going to plant a row. Cut an "X" where you want each plant. Transplant the seedlings through that "X" and into the soil. If you have cut the bottom out of the cups, you can plant the cups and they'll decompose over time. Water in your seedlings through the opening in the fabric. Replace the mulch, but don't let it touch the plants at this point--keep it a half inch to an inch away.

Once all your plants are planted and mulched, lay soaker hoses down through the beds in a pattern that will allow everything to be watered.

So, now your plants are planted and mulched. You have soaker hoses in place to water. All you have to do now is 'watch' the garden. When you see weeds sprouting in the mulch, or in the soil right where the plants were planted in the "x" cut in the fabric, take the time to remove them immediately.

If bermuda grass or some other weed you cannot pull up sprouts in the "X" that is cut in the fabric, put a small amount of Round-up in a paper cup and use an inexpensive craft-size foam paintbrush to paint the Round-up onto the weed. If you are afraid you'll get the Round-Up on the plant, put a paper cup or plastic cup over it to protect it for a few minutes until the Round-up dries.

Water regularly using the soaker hoses. You could put the soaker hoses underneath the mulch, but I usually don't recommend that for someone who is a fairly inexperienced gardener because with a buried hose you cannot tell if the hose is clogged and some part of the garden is not getting watered.

Using this method, you'll have little trouble with weeds. They key will be to catch weeds while small. If they sprout in the mulch above the landscape fabric, you need to pull them out before they manage to grow down through the fabric (which they eventually can do). If they sprout in the ground beneath the fabric, remove them as soon as they pop up through the "X" cut into the fabric.

You need to keep 2" of mulch on the landscape fabric because that mulch blocks sunshine which prevents weeds from sprouting underneath the fabric throughout the growing season.

It sounds like more work than it is. You also could cut the X's in the soil and directly sow the corn seed, but weeds likely would sprout along with it and compete with the corn and cause you more work.

This method requires more work up front, but less throughout the growing season.

I use landscape cloth in about 75% of my large garden, which is about 60'x 80'. I don't use it in areas where lots of plants are planted very close together....like bush beans, carrots and black-eyed peas....or with plants I'll need to dig like potatoes and sweet potatoes.

I don't use it in one part of the flower border where I have tons of reseeding annuals because it keeps them from reseeding, but use it in another part of the border that has lots of perennials and some annuals.

I can leave landscape fabric in place and use it for 3 to 5 years. In some places I use several layers of newspaper or a layer of cardboard instead of landscape cloth, but because they are not one continuous long piece, the weeds and grasses can grow up through places where pieces of paper or cardboard meet. So, if you use cardboard or newspaper, you'll have more weed issues.

I still have lots of weed issues, but they are much easier to deal with. In a rainy year like this one, heavy rains will wash a lot of weed seeds down from pastures that sit on higher ground adjacent to my garden. So, in a wet year, I have to pull a lot of weeds out of the mulch early on. By doing it early while they are small, though, it is not hard and it is not extremely time consuming.

If your raised bed is surrounded by bermuda grass that grows up into the beds, cut the grass short. Let it regrow an inch or so and then spray it with Round-up to kill it. Wait a week or so for the Round-up to work and then put down heavy cardboard covered with mulch. This will help smother the bermuda and keep it away from your raised bed. A mulched buffer zone of 3 to 4 feet is adequate. When you see bermuda sprouting in that mulched buffer zone, paint (don't spray because the Round-up can drift onto your plants) Round-up onto it.

If you use a mulched buffer zone, the grass will not get closer to your garden than the width of that buffer zone. If you use landscape fabric, well-mulched, you'll have fewer weeds and they'll be easier to remove.

I suspect that once your garden gets weedy, you dread going out there to it because it is hard to know where to start and it seems overwhelming. So, maybe you put it off a little.....and it gets worse. The landscape cloth/much method I described above works very well as long as you stay on top of any sprouting weeds from day one. You put in the majority of your labor early in the growing season when the weather is more pleasant.

Anyway, that's how I manage the main vegetable garden and keep is as low-maintenance as possible. I think it could work for you. There is no way I could manage the large vegetable garden, the container plantings, the yard, etc. if I didn't have good weed control up front. I also wouldn't have time to put up the harvest via freezing, canning and dehydrating.

Alternately, you could raise only in Earthboxes or some other form of self-watering container. However, doing an entire garden in self-watering containers has a very high start-up cost. I have a lot of plants in containers as well, especially pepper and tomato plants, but I have accumulated all the containers and soil-less container potting mix over time.

Gardening is supposed to be enjoyable and it can be if you get control of the garden plot early on and then refuse to relinquish it to the weeds.

Dawn

Thank you guys. I feel better already. I didn't think it was supposed to be this hard!

You're welcome. Gardening can be easy or it can be hard. It is sort of your choice. I try to "work smarter, not harder" and that makes gardening easier in the long run. LOL

After 20 months of drought here from midsummer 2007 to spring 2009, we have had heavy rainfall this year, and that very rainfall we'll all hoped for and prayed for came all at once--a foot of rain in one day. Folks who had gardens planted and had made no provisions to keep weeds out quickly became overwhelmed. So, I think that successful gardening involves being proactive and working to stay ahead of the weeds and pests.

I hope next year is a better year for you and that you find gardening to be a joyful experience and not a stressful one.

Tigerdawn - Dawn is so smart!!! I should have recommended the solarization too. I was more or less thinking of ways you could still enjoy your garden this year but she's recommended things that will work now and into the future! As she says...."work smart", it'll pay off in the long run. Don't know if there's a Sam's Warehouse near you, but I got the landscaping fabric there this year for around $15 a roll which is enough to do your spot plus some more. They still have it too and were also the best price on soaker hoses. I get my mulch, Cypress being my preference, at Lowes. Sometimes HomeDepot runs better sales early in the season, but the L place always has good stuff. DON'T, repeat DO NOT use any mulch you might get from your local city services. We did that last year and the bugs & diseases were worse than if we'd used nothing!

Hope you manage to carve out some times for this! I also work an 8 hr day that's a one hour drive ...one way. Got grown kids & grandkids, next door elderly in-laws and a hubby that's currently unemployed due to this economy. If I didn't have my garden, I'd be totally crazy!! It's simple, it rewards me and I get that little slice of quiet!!! I think it's about as close to God as you can get!

Keeping you in my thoughts and let us know how things go!

Paula

All I can offer is the lazy man's way. And that is to buy some roundup and spray everything in the beds and for about 2 feet outside the beds in September about a week after a good rain. Wait two weeks when it is all brown and then cover the beds in cardboard until April. That will make things much easier for you but you will still need to keep a little roundup nearby all year.

Maybe not the natural way, but it works.

I will add my lazy woman's way. Very much like Scotts with some minor differences.

I do sympathize with you. You have a very full plate. I hate to see you give up the garden. The size is very manageable and I think the therapy it will give you outweighs the work it will eventually be. There is something very peaceful about working outside with no phone ringing and away from other human noise (even if it is our family) that is so relaxing.

The added plus is when you get back from it the wonderful fresh vegetables or lovely flowers.

This year may be too late. If so, I would mow off then tops of the weeds before they set seed. Spray or not with herbicide. If the soil is lacking nutrients, add some manure or other supplements over the patch. Layer and overlap wet paper (newspapers, carboard boxes, feed bags, whatever you can get), the top it off with mulch (old hay, straw, leaves, whatever you can get free or very cheaply).

Let is rest all winter.

Next spring, pull back the mulch, break through the paper, and plant.

Note: before you put down paper the season before, you can lay out the rows marking them with sticks and just leave a narrow strip for the row for small seeds because the paper will still not be totally broken down by planting time)

Now all you have to do is keep an eye out for weeds popping through (and they will), layer wet newspapers and mulch over it again.

The point is to keep the patch under constant mulch. An added plus is as the mulch and paper breaks down the soil under will be remarkably soft and spongy and beautiful and full of earthworms.

I would suggest you trying to find a copy of Ruth Stout's No Work Garden book. It is out of print but you might find one somewhere.

It is an inspiration.

I wish you the best.

Glenda

Build or have built raised beds.

I have two with two more planned for next year. I use the square foot gardening method and it works great! No weeds. No broken backs. No hoeing.

Here's a link to my raised beds.

Here is a link that might be useful: Raised beds

I agree with boomer sooner. I have very little problem with weeds with my raised beds, done square foot style. Even on the one I put directly on top of the grass. I get a little grass and bind weed to pull out and that is all. On my phase 2 beds (those where I've learned a little more), I've had my hubby scrape the grass out and level the area, then put a triple thick layer of cardboard underneath my frame. I must also admit that I have spent a fortune on my planting mix, but I am hoping that is just a first year cost. I work 1 full time and one part time job. I like to get up early and sit in my garden when its cool and just do one little thing every morning on the way to work. I save all the "big" jobs for a cool day.

If you love it, stick with it. But also, don't stress if you've discovered its not for you.

I completely agree with dawn's advice. I am proud to say that for my first year garden was and continues to be an overwhelming success due to gardenweb (dawn, george, any many others). I know everyone has pretty much solved all your garden problems. I completely understand where you are coming from on the personal level. I work 10 hr days at a dog kennel. I handle 60+ dogs of all sizes on a daily basis. I come home to 4 dogs and a hubby who is legally blind and deaf. I drive him everywhere too. he is a college student at ou. (he also does volunteer work for obi) he has a busy schedule which becomes my schedule. I cook, clean, mow the front and backyard, take care of my dogs and my garden! I am in no way complaining. I love my life. I love my job and I love coming home. I started gardening as a hobby when we bought our house a year ago. now it is my new love! I enjoy working out in the garden alone to clear my head after 10 hrs of barking dogs! I also enjoy spending time with the dogs and hubby. we talk about our day and just talk... I don't look at gardening as a burden. I see it as a retreat with lots of rewards.
I also set 1 day a week devoted to yard work and gardening. when I moved into the neighborhood a year ago the neighbors said my house was the most hated house on the street because nobody cared about the yard. just last weekend we were taking out 2 mulberry trees that have been hanging over the fence rubbing on both of our roofs. he came out to warn us of the 3 hornets that he saw. he was so happy to get rid of the burden. I made the comment that we were just trying to keep up with the jonses. he said " are you kidding, you are the jones!" I think that was the moment I exhaled and saw that all of my hard work has not gone unnoticed. It felt great!
I hope we have lifted your spirits and helped you see that gardening does not have to be a burden. we see it as a blessing in so many ways. I guess its just how you see it.
good luck
kristy

Thank you everyone! I am happy to have a plan in place for next year. I just got a pattypan squash yesterday so I'll wait to kill everything until there's nothing useful left.

You guys rock!