Weed control, help needed

[oldenglish]

This year I put in a small garden, I am having a heck of a time keeping ahead of the weeds. I swear I can pull them on monday and they are back as big as ever by wednesday. As this is right next to my bee yard I dont want to use chemicals. So I am curious, what do you do to reduce the weed count.

[Kathyp]

pull what i can.  live with the rest.

[Natalie]

How big of an area are you talking about?
I would follow Kathy's advice for the rest of the season and then if its feasible, again, I have no idea what size area you have but you could consider putting down weedblock next spring.
Before I started the last 2 gardens in my yard I layered the whole area with sheets of cardboard and then a layer of loam/compost that I had delivered.
I have done it in March and planted in May.
It doesn't take all the long for it to break down and in the meantime I just went and planted right through any cardboard that was still intact.
The loam gave the plants a nice start too.
It smothered the weeds and grass pretty well.
In fact one of the gardens is 15x35 feet and its situated right where there use to be all lawn and I pull very little grass and zero weeds from there.
Other than that I am not sure what else you can do, I really don't think there are any safe weed killers out there so I just pull them or pay the kids by the bucketful.
All of the new gardens I put in now have been done with the cardboard/loam as a weedblock and its made it much easier than weeding the other gardens.

[Bee Happy]

My weeds are pretty thick this year, and I didn't stay on top of them like I should have. I think the compost i used  (manure from the neigh-bors horses) contained a seed from every variety of plant the horses ate even while out of state. I've been pulling the really thick ones and laying them down on top of other thick ones, the pulled ones die and smother the other ones. I'm talking pretty thick weeds here though.

[reinbeau]

Bee Happy, that's why I don't use horse manure at all, you introduce way too many weed seeds.  I stick to cow manure, yes, I have to buy it, but I'm not killing myself pulling weeds all season - well, not as many.

Any new garden area is going to be weedy the first season.  Use a long handled cultivator and work through the soil frequently, to bring those weed seeds to the surface and kill the baby weeds.  The trick is to stay ahead of them.  Pull the seedlings and put them in your compost pile.  Then mulch, mulch, mulch, with whatever you have access to.  It'll be better next season, provided you don't let those weeds go to seed!  I love weeding, but that's part of my gardening disease that few people understand  :-P

[Kathyp]

i have oats in my squash!  :-)

i was doing well with the weeding until i got the flu and also spent time away from home.  in just a few days, the weeds were winning.

[danno]

You can mulch with grass clippings.  At the end of the year till them in.  They work great keeping the weeds down and add humus to the soil

[dennis a]

We used newspaper (two sheets thick) this year with grass clipping on top. I has worked well for the paths and around plants.
Dennis