[JustaDumbBlonde]

Here in Louisiana we have so many weeds that it makes gardening a nightmare. The worst of the worst is nutsedge, which will keep you working the entire growing season. I absolutely hate spending time tilling, using the hoe, or just plain pulling grass and weeds, when I could be doing something more productive. Clean it all out -- spotless -- and 3 days later it's hard to tell you did all of that work. Once the vining plants start to spread, tilling is almost impossible.

So this past year, here is what I experimented with. I bought landscaper's quality landscape fabric and covered my beds. These beds were left over from rowing-up the year before and I did not kill the existing vegetation -- I just laid the fabric over it. This drew criticism from everyone. Most said that the black mulch would prove the death of my plants once the temps reached the usual 100^o that we see here. Others said the nothing would inhibit nutsedge. I too was skeptical, but determined to find some easy weed control.

For my experimental plot, I used 5 rows of 100 feet each. To maximize my area, I placed cattle fence panels upright to run the cucumbers vertically. (BTW, I will NEVER, EVER, plant cucumbers to run on the ground again!) The rows are on 40 inch centers. The landscape fabric is 48" wide and overlapped and pinned in the middles of the rows.

This first photo is very early on in the garden, I had just started putting in the tomato and pepper plants. The tomatoes are on the far right row and the fence panels on the far left-hand row.

This photo was taken about 4-5 weeks later, and is intended to show how the fabric was overlapped and pinned in the middle. Also note that the ends of the rows contain earthen dams in order to facilitate furrow watering.

This photo shows the cucumber plants climbing the fence panels. This is the ONLY way to crow cukes! They climbed the panels perfectly and the cukes were so easy to harvest.

The following photos just show the garden in full production. And you don't see a single weed among the plants!

This year I will plant my entire garden under landscape fabric. The test plot was 500 row feet and the fabric cost $70. I intend to do twice the area this year. While the price may seem high to some ... it is worth each and every penny. I produced thousands of dollars worth of produce with that $70, and I didn't spend a single minute pulling weeds.

But the benefits didn't stop with the lack of weeds ... I saved water because there was little loss to wind and sun evaporation. I increased production because the garden plants were not competing with weeds.

I invite your suggestions and comments.

[Gabz]

I invite your suggestions and comments.

One comment: AWESOME!!!!!!!

I'm looking out the the door to my upstairs deck and can see my "garden" -- I can actually see each section of the black mulch that I left from last year----because it is currently WHITE!!! The 40% chance of rain today has turned into a snow/sleet mixture and definitely not conducive to being outside, let alone even thinking about gardening :(

[xtinct]

amazing garden... going to look into landscape fabric

[Diana in Wisconsin]

“I invite your suggestions and comments.”

Absolutely brilliant. I plan on doing something similar this season, too. Since I had to go back to work full-time (for a Garden Center) I have little time to devote to my own garden, but I will never give up fresh tomatoes, peppers, cukes and beans in season, let alone my love for buckets of cutting flowers.

I’m cutting my gardening space down to a 40’ X 100’ patch, versus the 1/4 acre I’ve had some seasons when I had the time to maintain it.

Thanks for the pictures. They were very, very inspiring! :)

The only thing I would do is cover the plastic with straw. I have access to cheap straw, so that’s do-able for me. And then, at the end of the season, or the beginning of the next, I’ll till it in after pulling back the landscape fabric. Well, HUSBAND will! :)

[AmericaUnited]

This is the ONLY way to crow cukes!

I did what you said crows decimated my entire cucumber field. Drat You!

[trisham]

Wow! That’s incredible.

[gardengirl]

You might be interested in purchasing larger rolls. Check with your local garden center and see if they can order it for you. We get some in 6’ and 12’ widths. comes about 100-150’ per roll.

My boss puts a big pot in a child’s wagon. Plants his cukes in it and throws some circled hog wire around it. This makes a great close to the house salad topper and plus it’s moveable when you have to mow.

We always lose cukes in the fall here to mildew and blight and pickle worms. I’ve tried everything. Any ideas?

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

We do something similar but we use drip irrigation. We lay the cloth, plant, we harvest and take the cloth up in the fall. It also works for flower beds.

[tubebender]

WOW!!! Great healthy garden! It is wonderful to see a area where there are no 6 foot tall wooden stockade fences.

When we had a summer place I found some cheap rusted 6” X 6” X 5’ concrete reinforcing wire and made tomato cages about 3 feet in diameter. They are a pain to store unless you have some extra space going to waste but you save time not tying up the “maters ...

[CIDKauf]

I do the same thing, except we grow tomatoes and green beans, bush type and pole type. I am a landscape contractor and we use the fabric under rock or mulched beds for weed control, and in the greenhouse/garden shop to keep the mud down in the nursey areas. We have gone to a micro irrigation watering system where there is a 1 gallon per hour emitter every 3’ on center for green beans and (2) 1 GPH emitters every 5’ on center for tomatoes, placed on top of fabric where a small circle is cut in the fabric to allow for the plant to grow in the dirt area. Also costs less to amend soil each year as we only amend the 1’ diameter growing circle with composted soils. Last years production included 60 quarts of tomato juice, sauce, and whole blanched tomatoes, and 50 quarts of Kentucky Wonder green beans frozen in ziploc bags.

[chickpundit]

Wow, great garden! Those are beautiful pictures. Makes me wish it was spring. I did something similar, though much less spectacular and smaller in scope, in a section of my garden last year. I also put down landscape fabric, and then grew vining zucchini on an A-frame trellis. I only have room for a small garden, so vertical growing really helped, and the fabric cut down on weeding. (I also have a small raised garden bed, but I didn't seem to battle weeds in it.)

[bjcintennessee]

PING — Be sure to check post 39