Gardening Methods

vegetable garden weed control? what do you do?

I’ve got a small farm with a few acres of vegetable production. What is the best way to control weeds inbetween the rows? I’ve got black plastic over the hill, and have has trouble inbetween rows. We’ve only got 2 people so manual weeding is out of the question. and tricks would be greatly appreciated.

There are multiple methods to controlling weeds inbetween the rows (outside the black plastic). This is dependent on the type of plant you have for is type and its size.

Chemical method herbicide. One way to control weeds it to use chemical as a pre-emergence or a post emergence herbicides to kill of the weed. This can be difficult if the crop is the same type of plant as the weed (example: Grass in corn – both are of the grass family)

Chemical Method Organic – Preen and many other organic weed controls use chemicals that reduce growth of weeds by changing the chemical composition of the soil in the localized area.
http://www.preen.com/newpreen/prdpreenveg/index.jsp

Mechanical: You can pull the weeds by hand or you can try using a tiller. All you need to do is keep the soil between the rows a loose dry dust approx. 2″ deep and the soil beneath it a bit loose. This will not let the weed seed germinate.

Animals that will eat the weeds also.
http://extension.missouri.edu/xplor/agguides/poultry/g08922.htm

Suppressing Weeds in the Vegetable Garden