Yes it works and holds moisture and breaks down to make better soil,But you will have some weed seeds in the straw or oat seeds.I try and find someone that just has horses that feeds alfalfa hay,If it get's wet and moldy they won't feed it because it will make the horse sick!It's beeter if you can locate a stack that is rain spoiled and quite rotten.When it dries out it crumbles and is easy to spread around the plants.I have used oat straw and it works just as well except for some leftover wild oat seed. I just look around while I commute from place to place and I have been able to keep it on hand for free.I live in a farming community so it is all around me,When someone get's lazy or the wind blow's the tarp covering the hay off during a storm I tend to reap the benifits.Lawn clippings work well also.If I knew how to place a picture of the mulch in my garden I would and then you could see how good it looks.I just did my onions and garlic and fava beans.I let the plants get some size to them and then weed the area and mulch it.I have also placed a 1" by 4" over the seeded row of say beans and spread this crumbled mulch over the area,Then pull the board off and wait for the beans to come up and get tall enough to weed this smaller area and then pull the mulch around the established plants,You can add more mulch anytime to keep the weeds shaded out.Good luck. Joe

For the past 2 years, I've thought it was creeping bentgrass. Then this morning I took it to a local nursery (Merrifield Gardens - figured I'd give them a free plug for the good advice) and was told, as you've already confirmed, that it was nimbleweed. I think I was relieved to hear it, as I wasn't sure how I was going to control bentgrass. The good news for you is that the plant guy suggested trying Bayers "Bermuda Grass Control for Lawns". The active ingredient is Fenoxaprop-e-ethly (0.41%), and is in a 32 oz hose end sprayer (treats 5,000 sq ft). I paid $23, you may find it a little cheaper, as this nursery tends to be at the "upper range" of the pricing spectrum. Anyway, the guy helping me wasn't 100% certain it would be fully effective, as I'm about 2 weeks too late. But I'm in VA, and you're in NY, so it may be right on time for you. What was also good to know about the product was that if you wait too long in the season, bermuda grass develops a waxy coating on its leaves and stems, making it harder for herbicides to be effective. Not that you probably have to worry about bermuda by you, but thought that little nugget could be of use to the rest of us unfortunate souls. The label for the product is here: http://www.bayeradvanced.com/system/product_variants/label_pdfs/000/000/006/original_Bermudagrass_Control_32oz_RTS.pdf I noticed it doesn't say anything about nimblewill, but since I was buying the product anyway, I'll report back and let you know if it works. --Gags Here is a link that might be useful: Bayers Bermudagrass Control Spray

Amen to that, Carol! I have had to live off of the government for short times in my life, but I've paid for others to do so when I was working, so I don't feel like I'm so bad. I HAD a retirement account, but then the stock market crashed, and then I got injured and had cancer and couldn't work for two years, so there that went. I wouldn't wish that on anyone, but for people to feel superior because they have a 401(k) is just laughable. Look at all those people at Worldcom who thought they had it made. My sister worked for them. She is frugal to a fault, and she believed in them so much that she put most of her retirement savings into their stock. She lost it all, and it was a considerable amount. She's not stupid. She scrimped and saved for 30 years, and it was all gone, overnight. To give the impression that people who have savings accounts are somehow smarter than those who don't is snobbery, plain and simple. But that's o.k., because I truly believe that what you put out there comes back to you, and that if you have what the bible calls "ill gotten gains", which can just be money stashed away for your own benefit instead of giving to others who are in need, it will be taken away from you. You cannot hold on to ill gotten gains. Go read your Bible. My father once told me I would never have money, because I would give it all away. He was right. I'm sort of proud of that. Even in my current financial plight, I am thinking of going to help those who are worse off than I am, NOT about what the interest rate is on my IRA or 401(k). I'm telling you, it comes back on you 7 fold, so be careful! I've seen it time and time again. And BTW, my isp is only 5.50 a month!

I know this is mostly OT from the original post but I thought it might be of interest. I emailed the link to this thread to an American friend of mine who lives in Louisiana. Here are some excerpts from the reply I received: "I just read your last email where you sent me the link to the AU Garden Web forum and I found it so interesting that I just had to reply back to you on my own personal take of the posters' opinions. As far as the N.O. Botanical Gardens go and their request for replacement seeds and plants, that's a good thing, I suppose. It is a beautiful garden in the springtime and I've been there many times. But all the plants they want to replace are very common and easily available down here (once the plant nurseries get back on their feet which many have already). I'm wondering, tho, how these new plants and seeds are going to be cultivated and maintained without enough people to do it. I'm assuming that there are plenty of volunteers that can at this time. But I am wondering about that. The botanical gardens are located in City Park where they're trying to get FEMA trailers set up and the last I heard, lots of contractors from out of state as well as FEMA people are living in tents there. But that's not what's important anyway. I personally think that the botanical gardens aren't that important right now when you see so many desperate, homeless people that just need something to call a roof over there heads. And I'm an avid gardener myself. I just have to address the posters who talked about us being the richest nation and we have such poor assistance. Well, you Aussie friends are right on the money. We poor taxpayers here have to take care of the big government as well as take care of those that won't work. All of us here in the US know that if the federal government builds anything, it's half-assed. A perfect example is the levee system in N.O. that broke and caused all the destruction and deaths. It wasn't Katrina that did it, it was the levees breaking. The federal army corp of engineers built those many many years ago and were substandard back then. The same army corp is repairing them right now and promise to be finished by June. They aren't making them any stronger, they're just patching them back to Cat. 3 hurricane protection. Well, I don't think they'd hold a Cat. 3 either and you saw what happened with a Cat. 4. N.O. would have been okay for the most part if the levees hadn't have broken. Some posters on your forum mentioned not understanding why thousands of FEMA trailers are just sitting empty when so many need them. Aside from the unexcusable fact that FEMA is inept and doesn't know what the hell they're doing and nobody knows the answers from their office headquarters, I'll tell you why people don't have them. FEMA said they cannot and will not set up trailers unless there is proper water, sewer and utilities to hook up to. Well, the lights are still out in the majority of the...