This spring was our first garden EVER. We made a lot of raised beds from various stuff (old tires, railroad ties, cinder blocks, bricks, etc).

We moved around soil already here (bought the house summer 08). And, we had some truck loads brought in for other stuff and I used the extra dirt from that for the beds.

Then, I still needed more (had a BIG area), so I bought several dozen sacks of top soil and potting soil from Rural King and a co-op when they were about $1.19.

Made a nice set-up and was really inexpensive.

But, the places that I filled in with the soil from the sacks grew AWFUL weeds. We checked all around our property and they don't grow anywhere else.

There was only a few types and they only grew where the sack dirt was. One was like a ground spreading succulent. The other had 7-8 stalks that grew in a circle straight up 7+ feet high. They grew SUPER fast.

My husband said he thinks the sack dirt must be full of the seeds for these weed plants.

I let a few of them grow where it was impossible to get my veggies going, and asked a neighbor who's gardened in our neighborhood for years what she thought they were. She said she didn't know, but she had the same stuff growing this year and she had put in some sack dirt this year too.

So, I'm not sure how to undo the problem I think I've created. If the seeds were in the dirt will they keep growing every year?

Do I need to get rid of the dirt and start over?

Can I keep the dirt I have, and stop the weeds without using something chemical to stop them?

Any ideas of what to expect next year or what to do would be appreciated.

By the way, I don't plan to replant the garden until spring. For now, I've turned my goats and poultry out into the garden. They're eating off the garden leftovers and fertilizing for me until it's time to clean it up for spring planting.

You might have to hoe the weeds every year for a few years but it's good exercise!! LOL.

How about a mulch to smother the weeds in spring?

Just keep enriching the soil as you have and cuss a little everytime you have to do some hoeing.

Good luck.

There are some seious flaws in logic behind this statement! Unless you are possessed with god-like abilities, it takes eons to create or 'make' soil and more specifically by definition, "topsoil". At best what you can hope to do is improve existing soil by amending it. But this not automatically assume you are significantly increasing its volume by any stretch of the imagination.

Weeds are rather easily controlled through various means, some of which have alreaady been outlined for you. There is always a risk in purchasing a bagged product and very inexpensive bagged soil goods should arouse some suspicions anyway. Quality soil products tend not be sold at give-away prices, even when offered in bulk, which is, btw, a far less expensive means of sale than purchasing by the bag. And the advantage of bulk soil products is they can be visually examined to see what they contain.

The long and short of it is that weeds are not the end of the world, especially annual weeds, and certainly not a strong enough reason to caution anyone about never needing to purchase a soil product. Often you just cannot "make" enough soil from existing supplies to satisfy requirements and purchasing is the only alternative. Just know what you are getting -- caveat emptor.

The solution mulch it heavy and definatly pull them before 7 feet tall you don't want to make more weed seeds keep on it its going to get a lot better

some weeds can be of benefit attracting the bugs to them so they leave your vege's alone they can also attract pollintors to your garden, but they can all add nutrient to your compost or be used to make a tea to water the plants with.

len

The ones that grew to 7+ feet...I thought they were my tomato plants at first. Then, when I figured out they weren't, my kids were so excited about "growing plants" that I didn't have the heart to rip them all out. LOL.

I'm going to try and keep weeding good. And, we're going to be regrading the whole area and bringing in more dirt to double my garden size for next spring. (YIKES! might mean more weeds!)

We're having to get what we can afford, so it will probably be "cheap dirt" again and I might be making the weeds worse for awhile.

I agree that homemade compost is the best. But, before anyone warns me off of buying more dirt let me explain. I'm NOT a crazy person (LOL).

We bought this place in summer 08. It was a bank foreclosure. It's about 1/2 acre. The whole place was run down. We love it, and it's getting beautiful and lots of TLC and repairs. But, we didn't know that it was actually a Drug Lab until after we owned it.

Our neighbors were great, luckily the only "yucky" neighbors were the ones the bank kicked out of our house!

At any rate, part of the yard had "leftover" drug stuff in huge burn piles. We made our animal pens and the play areas for our kids in the other parts of the yard. Then, we literally had to have the bad part of the yard excavated so we knew all the drug making chemicals and busted drug making equipment was gone.

After that was when I started bringing "clean" dirt from whatever sources I could to build it up into something I could use as a garden area.

Thanks again for the advice, you guys are awesome!

Lloyd

My garden is in a field that the topsoil was stripped from and sold several years ago the first year I brought in several tons of manure-barnyard dirt great stuff but lost control of the weeds and had them about as tall as the house(:

I mowed it tilled, planted rye, after all the weeds got going in the spring shot it with roundup tilled and planted then used straw to mulch several inches deep and never hoed again
You might get by without the roundup but I wasn't taking any chances

I've decided not to use any chemicals anywhere outback. I use only natural stuff even for cleaning out my pets and livestocks places.

I've got too many kids and animals that run loose and only two eyes. The animals will drink out of any water source they find and the kids are always playing in any water that's around.

Since I'm not a chemist, I've just stayed away from all chemicals, pesticides even store bought fertilizers. That way they aren't around for the kids to get into the containers, and I don't have to panic that the rain water could pick-up any chemicals from our ground and hurt anyone or animal that ingests it or gets it on their skin.

When weed seedlings sprout, use a scuffle hoe and slice them out, or mulch over them.