I give up.

I have killed it with Roundup. Requires repeated applications.

Smothering works. Need cardboard (not newspaper,) well overlapping edges, some kind of organic matter placed on top, in an amount significant enough to block all light and to be heavy enough to hold cardboard firmly in contact with soil. Using a shovel around the perimeter also helps to make sure nothing under the smother is connected to plants outside the smother area. Do not disturb until you're *sure* it's dead under there. At least a few months, over winter is even better.

I'd like my vegetable patch to get free from this nasty thing. So i can't use round up and other chemical or nuke weapon. I did smothering, then double digging with taking out every root as much as possible. It was tolerable this season, but as I see now bermuda come back. I just don't have enough strengths to do that hard work again.

If you try smothering again, don't disturb it until the roots are dead. If you're willing to dig up grass, smothering isn't necessary.

Once you've got an area clear of grass, when mowing around it, aim the chute away from non-grass areas to avoid slinging seeds back into areas where you don't want grass growing.

I placed my most recent smother over a month ago and don't plan to attempt to use that spot until spring. Our "lawn" has Bermuda, torpedograss, bahaigrass, all the really tough ones, but I've smothered them before, many times, and don't anticipate any problems this time either.

You're totally right, getting rid of grass is the hardest part of any kind of gardening! After that, everything else seems like tons of fun!

Isn't your vegetable patch a seasonal thing? If so, you can target the Bermuda grass in the off season when you don't have vegetable coming up.

I do not believe in killing bermuda roots by any chemical or physical attempts. They will resurrect if they were there and conditions get right again. Only removing every root from a bed will work - that is what I believe. Unfortunately, we have only couple weeks of cold weather, it is not enough to kill bermuda, or fire ants, just another horrid thing that I hate.

Dead is dead. No "resurrection" unless you missed some. Warm weather is the best time to apply Roundup.

Yes, dead is dead. If left under smother until dead, it will be dead, and can't resurrect. Torpedograss is the worst one I've battled, but can also be killed. Just takes time, or a shovel. No idea about chems, I don't use them.

IMHO, It may be dead after removing from dirt and composting, but it can't be dead in soil under smothering, it just travel by its rhizomes where smothering ends and makes their roots and rhizomes thicker and mighty.

When I did double digging I found rhizomes at 2 feet deep, no smothering even for decades could kill it there.

Looks like you answered your own question. Happy digging!

It sounds like you may have torpedograss.

Yes, you are right! It is torpedo grass. I've never heard about it before .

Me either, until seeing someone ask for its' ID recently. Then I realized why I'd been having such a hard time in this yard vs. where I lived for 7 years before, only 1/2 mile away. The other yard had a bunch of different grasses, but not torpedo grass.

It's the toughest (most determined) grass I've tried to garden around, totally feelin' your pain! I promise you it can be smothered, but keeping it from creeping back in from the sides has been giving me trouble too. A border of bricks laid on the surface doesn't stop this one, like all of the other grasses. It goes right under them. Other grasses just need to be stopped from going over.

As we speak, I've got a big patch of "lawn" being smothered under cardboard with a railroad tie border. IDK yet if railroad ties will be enough of a border or not, to keep torpedo from creeping under them. Will find out next year.

When mowing, aim the chute away from areas you're trying to keep free of grass. You don't want to shoot seeds into beds you've gone to all the trouble to clear of grass & other unwanted plants.

Tilling &/or double digging probably just spreads this, depositing roots much deeper than they might be otherwise, which would definitely make it harder to smother. Also probably can regenerate from bits of roots, so chopping them up only propagates those kinds of plants, instead of killing them.

Regardless of vegetation type, tilling isn't beneficial to the soil, actually the opposite. Plants can only be as good as the soil in which they're growing. I recommend spending a few minutes watching this short lecture on microbiology, which won't help you kill torpedo grass, but should help with the actual gardening/soil building:

http://permaculturenews.org/2013/09/20/soil-not-dirt-dr-elaine-ingham-talks-soil-microbiology/

When I did double digging, I checked every shovel and removed every rhizome . I guess about 90% of dirt was free of them. Now, there are watermelons still growing, So I can't clean it again yet. hopefully, it will a little bit easy and less work. Thank you for the link.

Happy to share it, I'm an ardent fan of hers. Was doing what she describes for a very long time, tweaked over the years from the helpful info people here on this forum shared about getting started gardening, then found that video & understood so much more about what was going on, why it works so well (torpedo grass notwithstanding!) Good luck, fighting the good fight!