We have a rather sizeable vegetable garden in the lot between our house and Sieck Hall and this area is like a lot of areas on the campus, rather virgin land on which nothing but grass and weeds have taken root over the decades. It's hard to get rid of all these things, we think we've cleared them and 3 days later here they come again.
Earlier in the spring I began planting nice rows of tomatoes and peppers and squashes and onions and potatoes and covered the ground around them with straw. This helped quite a bit in keeping the weeds at bay. Now, though, that darn nutsedge grass has just filled every space it can find. Nut grass is the worst what with it's roots filled with round nuts which we can never get to the bottom of. We can pull the grasses out, but there is always some nut root left.
So yesterday when I rototilled the second half of that area, I finished by putting down black landscape fabric. The science dealing with weeds supposedly believes that weeds and grass and anything else won't grow in the dark. Weeds need light. We'll see. After laying down the fabric I started planting by cutting an X in it and sticking a plant in the opening. I did that for each plant. Then it was necessary to secure the fabric so it didn't blow away. There are several ways to do this, cover it with mulch or some such or use fabric stakes.
When Dale bought the fabric he didn't buy the securing stakes so until I get out to get them I put wet straw on top and also used a few tomato cages to hold it down. I was glad I did this when I woke up during a loud and windy thunderstorm last night.
I just hope this helps the weed issue somewhat. With this area almost done we have Okra, baby watermelons, cantalope and acorn squash, all things we know students like.