How To Beat Quackgrass With Minibed Gardening

[@christineedwards4865]

Three feet of border space is a good suggestion. Quackgrass rhizomes can usually travel about 2 feet, so 3 will keep quackgrass and also the vast majority of other weeds that spread like that at bay. No method is 100% weed free in outdoor gardening, either organically or with the use of herbicides. You're doing a great job, considering they only spread to one bed in 7 years for you. Weeding by hand can be relatively easy as long as you do it often enough to not let the weeds reestablish. Even a plant with a huge amount of energy reserved in its roots like burdock or pokeweed will eventually die off if no new leaves are allowed to develop. I think the main difficulty for most people is finding the time and motivation to actually get out there and pull weeds. Unless a person has an exceptionally large garden, 10 minutes a week spent weeding would probably be enough for most people to gain the upper hand on any invasive or aggressive weed.

[@beckymeyer1818]

One side of my minibed gardens doesn't have as deep a border as needed to keep the quackgrass out. A couple years ago I planted that entire border/edge with Russian comfrey plants. The comfrey has gotten so thick and completely crowded out any weeds/grasses that threaten to encroach. My minibed garden is not nearly as large as yours - only about 40 beds.

[@weedygarden]

After several years of trying to grow blueberries, I finally got them to survive the winter. I planted them in a large pot of sphagnum peat moss and watered it periodically over the winter.

[@cynthiafisher9907]

You’re right, I have woven weed fabric and the quackgrass finds a place to root. It’s terrible stuff! It took over my raspberry patch, so I moved the raspberries. I have read that chickens are the only way to eradicate it. I am planning to put my chickens on my former raspberry bed this spring, we’ll see if it works.

[@beerdrinker6452]

Nice video. Always enjoy your posts.

[@elizabethjohnson475]

That stuff's as bad as bermuda. We don't have quackgrass here, but I have fought bermuda successfully. We're vacationing across the south from far north California a month ago. Only we have rv trouble, and maybe stuck in Miami, Florida for a while longer!

[@herrickkimball]

You drove from Northern California to Miami, Florida!! That's quite the trip. And Hawaii before that. Sounds like you're into the retirement years now. 👍

[@marilynjarz-um9sb]

Bindweed is worse. I love quack grass compared to bindweed. At least you can dig quack grass out. The roots are shallow. Bindweed roots go to China so if they break off while you are digging them, that stimulates them to try harder.

[@herrickkimball]

Agreed. Bindweed is the weed from hell. My parents had it in their garden when I was a kid. My neighbor has it in his field, not far from my garden. I mow a wide section of lawn between his field and my garden to keep the bindweed at bay. Thus far, I have managed to keep it out.