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Originally Posted by jeaninmt
Any ideas on how to manage on what seems to me to be a large scale ? Granted, it gets planted in stages over about a month..... Thanks for any ideas !!
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I am working on a method to handle weeds on a larger scale for at least the transplants. You are probably aware of the black plastic commercial growers use. Roll it out and poke holes anywhere a seedling goes. Well instead of black plastic, you can use bogus paper covered with hay. Rolls come in widths from 1 foot to 6 feet wide and as long as 1000 feet + at very reasonable prices.
No need to plow or till or even broadfork. (although you can if you want) Just roll out 1000 foot row and cover with hay. BTW some of the small round bales can be rolled out too. If you use a round bale of hay and match the same width in bogus paper, you could very quickly roll out one after the other and be done very quickly! May need a tractor to move the hay bales though. Then just plant your seedlings through the paper.
I plan on trialing a version of this over virgin grass next year that even includes chicken tractors for later between row weed control. But you wouldn't have to go that far. The standard paper and mulch all by itself works great.
After a few years of this you usually don't even need the paper, hay is enough.
One thing though. I found out from another guy in Tomatoville that some hay is treated with herbicides. Obviously you need to find a hay source that doesn't poison their hay with any chemicals or it will poison your crop too.