I don't know how much of your garden is planted so far, but if you feel like you can't control the weeds in the whole area, I'd consider limiting the planted area to as little as a quarter of the space. By careful weed management in a smaller area you may actually increase your yields compared to gardening the whole space under heavy competition from whatever weed you've got-- johnsongrass is a good guess. Virginia tech has a weed identification site (google ipm weed virginia and the link should pop up). The drawback of trying to garden the whole area and failing to get the bad weed problem under control is that you'll be perpetuating and increasing your weed population for next year. I have a very productive garden that's approximately 25x25. The perennial weeds still kick my butt this time of year (my own pest is nutsedge right now... I won the war with bermudagrass), but with constant vigilance hand-weeding can usually be successful in a small space. If you can limit your garden to only a portion of the space, then you could repeatedly till the rest of the area (tilling once just increases the problem. If you till repeatedly at two week intervals eventually the roots run out of steam and weaken) or mow or graze animals on it. Whenever possible, remove the roots and stems or at the very least leave them on top of the soil to dry out instead of leaving them buried to regrow. Good luck! I wish you had turnips instead! Here is a link that might be useful: Johnsongrass eradication

Hello I am looking to trade my 2 packs of Purple Top white globe turnip and 1 pack sparker white top radish seeds (commerical 2007) for anything on my want list please. Will consider offers also Thanks Kathy

Thanks, folks. Lots of good thoughts there based on your experience. I've never seen this issue addressed before, though it's been bugging me for a long time and apparently has bothered others too. So long as the "bulb" portion of the root is at least partially embedded in the ground, they do OK. It's only when they sit loose on the surface that the plant can't grow properly. With onions, of course, there is never a problem as they have a different kind of root system. The first half of my gardening life was spent gardening in loamy clay, which formed my ideas as to what is "normal". In the second half I hope to master sandy soil. It is challenging, but nice and easy to dig. The trench idea sounds sensible, as do the soil ammendment and temperature comments. Jim

Do you still have any oriental radish and turnip seeds and anything else oriental.