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Children's garden full of rocks & weeds
Rosemarie Freeman
Posts: 3
Hi! I'm garden chair of my sons preschool children's garden. It is planted with well meaning shrubs and perennials in full sun; however, it is also a weed garden -- more weeds than I have ever seen before (and I'm an avid gardener). At first I thought it was just neglect by precious garden chairs, but the more I dig the more I see it could be poor installation by whomever did this project. The top later is all mulch, then comes a weed barrier sheet, and under that is all small rocks and then obviously dirt. My guess is that this was weed infested and they built on top of that so no matter how much I go there and pull weeds, it's never ending. So my question is: what do I do? What can I do? Would cornmeal gluten help at all considering there's mulch & weed barrier? We're not allowed to use any chemicals on school property, either. Thank you for any help you can provide!!
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I'm assuming you have fallen victim to predictive texting? What should "cornmeal gluten" have really been?
If there is a membrane weed barrier sheet, the weeds should just be annuals rooting into the mulch. If you cant use chemicals, its back to liberal use of a hoe or hand pulling.
Interesting. For a possible reason why the weeds are still growing suggest checking www.donsgardenadvice.org/house/weeds/herbicide
This may explain why the area is still weed infested. If so then it is back to regular hoeing/hand weeding, impoving the soil, hoeing, weeding...
Googling Cornmeal Gluten comes up with this
http://puyallup.wsu.edu/~linda%20chalker-scott/Horticultural%20Myths_files/Myths/Corn%20gluten.pdf
suggesting that it has been marketed as a pre-emergent anti-weed treatment - however the efficacy seems unproved at the very least.
I presume that Rosemary Freeman is in the USA.
As for the garden - the first thing to establish is whether the weeds are originating from below the weed barrier and growing through it - in which case it needs replacing with a better quality membrane - or whether the weeds have their roots in the soil above the membrane - in which case the answer would seem to be consistent weeding.
It may well be that weed seeds are blowing in from elsewhere - it would be helpful to look around and identify a possible source of weed seeds - if these could be eliminated it would be helpful.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Well I suppose with half of california on a gluten free wheat free diet, they had to find some use for it.
Fidget
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
The weeds are originating under the barrier for sure -- I can hear the barrier rip as I pull the weeds and for most of them I have to use a weeding tool.
So I need a better barrier ... And volunteers to hoe ...
Thank you for your responses!
Hello Rosemary, Just returned from a visit to daughter and family, at grandchildrens school they have an organic garden and experienced similar problems as you are having.
Their solution, involving pupils, parents and grandparents, was to take out existing plants (potted them up) take out damaged membrane and start again, digging over the ground to clear as many weeds as possible. It took two years to re-establish but provided a wealth of learning for everyone.
I would be interested to know how you are getting on with your 'challenge'.
Good luck!