Travis, I've had good luck getting rid of fire ants with Fertilome's "Come and get it, Fire Ant bait". It is a Spinosad based granular bait. Easy to apply, just sprinkle around the ant mounds and let them take it inside the nest and in a few days the entire nest is dead. Being Spinosad, it's safe for veggie garden use!

Travis, I can't help but wonder... When we want grass in a specific place, we simply can't get it to grow, but in places where we *don't* want it to grow, we can't kill it! Why is that?

Love the tarp ideas, and have used them effectively with minimal follow up soil disturbance, but my issue is getting a decent tarp! I've found the 6 mil UV resistant poly tarps will not last more than 2 seasons. I've rolled my tarps with 20' PVC and I highly recommend taking the tarp to a covered area out of the sun during the 'off season'!

I have been helping to maintain a community garden for the past year. There was a dense growth of Bermuda grass in most of the forty 10ft X 10 ft raised beds, and in the pathways between the raised beds when I began helping. My first project was to dig up the Bermuda grass with a shovel and separate the Bermuda grass rhizomes from the soil with a potato hook. The rhizomes went to the landfill. This produced a nearly Bermuda grass free garden, but was more work than this 80 year old body wants to repeat. I covered another 10 ft X 10 ft plot with black plastic in mid April while the soil was still wet from winter rains. I removed the plastic in mid August after we had several weeks of temperatures exceeding 100°F. The soil was still wet, and the Bermuda grass had not only been killed, but had rotted into compost. I covered another plot with the plastic in mid August and removed it in mid October. The Bermuda grass rhizomes were still very much alive. The temperatures had seldom exceeded 100°F during the time the plastic was on that plot. I plan to cover several more plots with black plastic next summer.

Cardboard on footpaths in the summer will control Bermuda. Way better than hand control.

Bermuda grass, along with other weed pressure, has been a DEFINITE nemesis on us for years. Been thinking for years. Now going to order some tarp and leaving it for a few months and praying all along the way. As always Thank You for another informative video . For what it is worth we planted our Timon and Chianti onion seeds today. With a bit of luck we will be able to take them to the garden and transplant them mid February or early March!

So very good to see this video....I'm gardening on a prior cattle pasture and the Bermuda is constant grief.....gonna get to trying this asap...THANK YOU

Tks Trav, absolutely right!!!

Good to know about the weed seeds germinating under the tarp then dying!

Solid plan T! You know how I feel about my tarps!! I’ve got to get you on the sandbag program! You’ll like them, I promise! 😉

Thanks for the great info..I am tapping since September..moving tarps over worst weed areas..also eat up with fire ants..growing in Texas

Great info... thanks 🙂

Roughly 40x45 garden here with a couple sub plots 6x20. I have several medium and heavy duty brown tarps from the stores. I also have a roll of 10' wide 6 mil black plastic I used under my house. Which would be better? My biggest concerns are light getting through vs the black plastic deteriorating quickly in the sun and coming to pieces. Still battling weeds here because of all the grass and weed close by. BTW, my taters caught a second wind so I threw some more in the ground that sprouted about a month ago. They are blowing up. Hitting high 20's again this week here, so I'll let you know.

@LazyDogFarm

7 ай бұрын

I think the brown tarps will degrade pretty quickly in the sun, at least that's my experience.

Where do you get your tarps?

How do you eradicate bind weed? I live. In central Kansas. I put down tarps, plastic, and mulch. The bind weed comes through it all. I pull it as soon as I see it, thinking if the roots don't get fed by the sun, it may kill it. But when I pull up the tarps or plastic, it has vines all underneath it. It comes right through 6 inches of mulch no matter what mulch I use it comes right through.

@sharonaskew2873

7 ай бұрын

Also I'm from Griffin GA. I've heard baking soda mixed with corn meal would get those darn fire ants. However my husband use to think he needed to pour kerosene down those holes and light them up. But that was 50 years ago, and we were young and dumb then.

I got bind weed it very hard to get rid off with out round up but don't want to use in garden so constant pain

Hi Trav , we need a hat video 😅😅😅. Hope and Fam had a great Thanksgiving .

What you ever used herbicide on your property? I have a spot in my backyard where we cut down 4-5 trees and didn’t dig up the stumps. These things are just going to keep growing back endlessly and I’m considering spraying them with something but the organic hippie in me just won’t let me do it. They aren’t super close to my garden so I don’t think it’ll hurt my veggies, but still.

@LazyDogFarm

7 ай бұрын

I'm not opposed to using a herbicide in that sense. I sprayed a ton of it when working at a golf course in college.

whatever happened to the worm bins you had sitting in the middle of the raised beds? How did they work out for you?

@LazyDogFarm

7 ай бұрын

It has been consumed with Ageratum flowers recently. As soon as the frost kills those flowers, I'll dig it up and put it in a better spot.

It's worth noting that nutsedge is a sedge, not a grass. I know that some people will say I'm being pedantic, but the difference is important to some other folks.

@LazyDogFarm

7 ай бұрын

Correct

Travis have you had any issues with the jumping worms ?

@LazyDogFarm

7 ай бұрын

Have not.

Would it work for purslane, which spreads by runners?

@LazyDogFarm

6 ай бұрын

Purslane is tough. It definitely helps. But I haven't found a way to get rid of purslane for good except pull it, pull it, pull it, and chunk it all in the woods. That stuff will keep propagating from every little piece that is left in the soil it seems.

travis how do you keep grass edges out of the garden and orchard? My beds are fairly clean , but the edges get nasty , the grass loves creeping in .

@victorandrews9790

7 ай бұрын

I 'ditch' around the garden perimeterwith a shovel and have found that effective, even nice looking

@LazyDogFarm

7 ай бұрын

That wheel hoe around the perimeter works pretty good.

@Sssanbo

7 ай бұрын

Ok this might the final straw for me to get a wheel hoe. The tool could make a great episode since I see how you use it a lot , maybe more than others. @@LazyDogFarm

After you till, do you rake out the weeds or let them decompose?

@LazyDogFarm

6 ай бұрын

Depends on how many weeds there are. If there are a lot of them, I will try to rake most of them out the plot. But if it's just a few, I don't worry about it.

Omg..do not till.bermuda 6:33 ..omg. each piece will sprout...omg..

@cody481

2 ай бұрын

That's what I thought. I was wrong. The tarp /till/tarp/till-etc works because it forces it to sprout. Sprouting takes 100% energy. Multiple Sprouting times kills EVERYTHING!