When the summer heat arrives, many people will tend to get tired of their backyard garden and let it become overgrown with weeds. Don’t do this!
There are easy solutions to keep your garden in great shape this summer while reducing your weed pressure. These solutions will make backyard gardening so much easier and also help you prepare for a beautiful fall garden!
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33 Comments
I'm growing in containers but as soon as I empty one I'm adding something else. My zipper cream peas have just sprouted and I'm waiting for my cucumbers to sprout. In TX heat, I've got almost everything under shade cloth or in dappled sun/shade. Never believe full sun for TX summers.
Deep south here. Still doing watermelon green peppers and cucumbers.
I have a really heavy weed problem. My chickens did take care of it all winter, but once I took them off, to start planting stuff, it rained and rained and rained.. Suddenly, I was thick with weeds! I will try the till and tarp method. Thanks!
Here in KY zone 6 I will be gardening throughout the summer and hopefully into the fall. I am trying to keep something planted all the time. As I take out cool season crops I am planting warm season crops. Hopefully I can continue this into fall then sow a cover crop for winter. Thanks for the great video.
i got out in the garden today to work on weeding… 95 degrees it’s scorchin. used a small tiller and a wheel hoe to get in there and start scrapin out grass weeds
Travis, any idea if tarping for weeds would work for Johnson Grass, which spreads underground by rhizomes? We're gardening this year on our neighbor's ranch while we get our garden plots on our ranch ready, their 1 acre garden which they haven't planted anything in for around 8 years, but plow a couple times each year, used to be a Johnson grass pasture.
The dormant rhizomes that get chopped up during fall and winter plowing are wide awake, and growing the thick grass everywhere, which is driving us CRAZY.
Not a drop of rain here in 24 days, temps 100-111 each day, yet the Johnson grass is thriving-it grows 2-4" a day! Not only is it crowding our veggies, but the grasshoppers LOVE it, and we have to mow it down between the veggies every 2 days or lose plants to the hoppers…so it's a double NIGHTMARE.
Shouldn't have to deal with it next year, but our neighbors are planning on gardening in their plot next year, but are now freaking out watching us deal with this invasive grass! We and the owners absolutely refuse to use chemical herbicides and have tried several organic weed killers/preventatives, and the only thing that remotely slows it down is pulling the Johnson Grass up which is backbreaking considering the amount of grass, the root strength, and this LOVELY heat. Any advice? I honestly think this crap could survive a nuclear bomb, LOL! Thx! 🙂
Being up north, I'm growing through the summer. I will still squeeze in a cover crop toward the end as things finish up. Buckwheat or Sorgham Sundan grass. The Sorgham can be left to winter kill if needed. Might plant some winter rye this fall in a few beds. I released my own video for dealing with the heat this morning. 😀
Travis my planting zone is 9b and my high temperature is around 75 degrees and nights around 55 what would be a great cover crop that’s great for my soil and chickens and thank you for teaching us how to garden
Have you experimented with clear plastic instead of a dark tarp that blocks the light?
I’ve been told the clear will cook the weeds and seeds on the surface. Any thoughts?
Growing throughout the summer. I succession plant so when 1 crop is done, the next crop goes in.
Hey Travis
Another great video
I was just wandering how your fig trees are going. Another fig tree update video would be great. Thanks from Ash Queensland Australia.
Thank you for addressing my weeds. I didn't know you drove past my house in Louisiana to see my weed plots. Next time don't just drive by stop and say hello. I am going to change out the wheel hoe to break up those weeds. I retilled and the plot was just so dry. I'm debating on would it be easier to run the wheel hoe thru the really dry ground or should I throw the overhead sprinkler on it first. I think I have some of that ssg from last year. Can't wait to get my mobile chicken coop so I can get my girls in the garden.(Tbh I still haven't sexedmy chickens to see which are girls vs boys) my son says it looks like we definitely have 1 rooster) as long as he's nice and can play nice he won't end up in a pot of dumplings. As always great content just at the right time.
Ive tried a 2nd crop of sweet corn because we have the time but it always gets rust. Broccoli and other brassicas do so much better for me in fall that i dont even try in spring so ill be getting them started here in a couple weeks.
That’s such great advice from a master gardener! I reckon one could use Roundup instead of a tarp if they weren’t of an organic bent. I’m definitely in that one garden season category up here, in some ways that’s not so bad, I can kind of forget the garden for six months of the year. By spring my enthusiasm to get out there is huge!
Klaus
Hi Travis, I have cow peas in 3 plots, and two plots i have tarped the areas that have finished spring crops. I'm really looking forward to my fall garden.
Mother Nature doesn't like bare soil. If you don't grow something, she will…weeds!
Thanks for your tarp idea. I have nut grass, that is awful. Cannot get rid of it!!! I may leave a tarp all winter, but don’t know if “the nut” will just lay dormant.. just waited to be till & explode into action!!!!!The farm suppliers didn’t want me to put the “killer for nut grass” any where I was raising food to eat! I have dug it out by the bucket fulls trying to contain it, but …….😞😏
Once again another great video. Excellent explanation on why cover cropping and tarping work so well to combat weeds. Seems there’s always something fun and exciting happening at LDF!!
This is totally off topic but I was watching a utube from ourstoneyacres on 12 seedlings you should start indoors in June/July. I understand I am not in the same zone as he is talking about but trying to think ahead for a fall garden what he comments on doesn't sound right to me. I looked back on your older utube and was not able to find anything on when to start seedlings pertaining to first frost date. If I have missed it can you direct me to it please. I am one of those people that like to think way ahead LOL.
Does the tarping work on the rhizome type grasses?
Do you have a method that doesn't require tilling? I don't own a tiller and my soil can be very hard. I've had 2 different tillers bounce along rather than dig down. After several ours I was able to make 1 pass about 40' long and 1" deep.
You can use Corn Gluten Meal tea to keep weed seed from germinating. Liquid corn gluten meal spray Found on the Howard Garrett web page – a listener/farmer recommendation
The way we use corn gluten on our fields – we make a tea out of it and spray on the fields once a month from Autumn to May. Works very well. We use 2 to 6 cups of corn gluten to 100 gallons of water and spray it on with a pull behind sprayer. We just put the corn gluten meal in panty hose and suspend it in the sprayer when we fill it up, then swish the panty hose, remove and stir. Use at about 35 gallons per acre. Simple, economical and effective.
I agree a fall garden is the best garden. Here in Iowa we have no spring.
Thank you!! for this valuable weed information!! Our Summer garden plans for our area, of course, are to keep things growing as long as we can before the first average you-know-what occurs. My potatoes are beginning to bloom, so babies are starting underneath. I usually wait until the plants are mostly to completely expired before I declare it to be tater time. 🥔
I currently garden in all raised beds but am hoping to start my first in ground garden plot for fall or next spring. I will use your recommended tarp method to get it started. For Fall gardening, any recommendations of tomato varieties to grow? Do I need varieties that are great with heat set? I’m in zone 9a in Texas. Thanks!
Great tips for the weed pressure…..Certainly know that feeling of wanting to give up, when nothing seems to be growing properly. Not to bad with weeds since I am mostly in raised beds.I tried those King Arthur peppers heard and saw lotta good about them. Those along with most of my other peppers didn’t get very big and I Kind of attributed to the raised bed being new,but even my okra in an established bed isn’t doing good either now I’m not even sure sweet potatoes are going to produce.not going to quit entirely, but maybe just pull all the plants and put a cover crop down, and hope it grows lol.
Thank you for the advice on the weed control methods!!
Hey Travis Love your videos. Will your tarping method kill nut sedge? Have had a horrendous problem here in Tn. Zone 7 the last several years. Seem like it has become immune to basagran and image! Don't like these chemicals in my vege garden anyway!
Here in central Maine, it's nice we have the option of a spring garden, summer, and fall. Not the longest season and we have restrictions, but there is a lot available to take advantage of. Also, my pest pressure/disease is really low, not sure why.
I have 8, twenty foot beds. I put a sheet of pretty thick black plastic over one bed for the spring, into early summer (so a couple months). It did quite the number on the weeds and is now my best-looking bed. I'll be employing this method going forward, not to the point of killing off all soil life, but just when needed.
Very helpful. Thank you
I planted Sun Hemp earlier in the summer on one area of my garden that I had okra planted in the spring. The nematodes were really bad there. I am going to come back with Kodiak Brown Mustard and hit that area again and most of the rest of the garden. It's been 13 days. I don't have a lot of weeds yet. I guess I only have another week before I can plant the mustards, but my question is, If I'd wanted to tarp that area, would the Sun Hemp still be working on the nematodes in the ground under a tarp or do you need to leave it uncovered? I'm really surprised I don't have more weeds coming up because we have a really invasive weed down here That is impossible to get rid of. Round up won't even kill it, and if it finds a bare spot of dirt, you can bet It's going to show up, even if there was never any there before. Looks like the old Wandering Jew plant but larger, and if you happen to mow some over, a new plant grows everywhere a piece of it lands. It's awful. Only way you can get rid of it is to pull it up. Your only grace is, it goes away in the winter. I even tarped an area earlier but for only 3 weeks and it came right back. So can I tarp after I till the Mustard into the ground, or should I wait 3 weeks to let the gasses work then tarp?
Yeah..it is heart breaking..i m pushing 80 and if i dont weed DAILY I.REGRET IT..GET EM WHILE THEY ARE SMALL IS BEST….BUT IF U GOT BERMUDA GRASS…LORD HELP U…ONLY ONE WAY TO GET.RID OF IT…BAKE THEM IN THE SUN..ABOUT EVERY FIVE YEARS I GOTTA SOLAR THE BEDS…RAISED BEDS HELPED SOME.