The grass burs are back in the garden. Some areas are worse than others. The walkway, where we had put down black plastic, covered in mulch, is full of them so when I would go out to grab green onions, or beets . . not even intending to spend time working in the garden, I’d get grass burs on my pants legs or worse, in my feet. The ones on my pants fall off in the house and get in the rugs, or worse, manage to get in the laundry and attach themselves to other things . . just waiting to cause me pain.
Cardboard
Vince got the idea to get some heavy duty cardboard and put that down along the path. It will degrade and not harm the soil.
Lids and Nails
We used canning jar lids to keep the nails from going right through the cardboard.
Cardboard
The edges still wanted to curve when they got wet so I lined my ginger lily pots up along the edges.
The best part . . those low spots in the middle hold water. I can stomp around in that and get some of the mud off my boots or better yet, when the water is clean enough, take off my shoes and play in the puddles!
This will help with weed control for a while and if the cardboard breaks down before the gardening season is over, we can just add more on top of it.
shirley swift-bruner says
Poor Judy….you always seem to have some issues in your garden….but, you always seem to find a solution also. i’ve been opening feed sacks and laying them down and covering with mown grass.
JOYCE says
Good idea Judy. Could you post your flour tortilla recipe or give us a link for it. The one that has baking soda In it?
THANKS joyce
obed101 says
Daughter Carrie is a Master Gardener and she uses a lot of cardboard in her gardens. tha means i have to buy a lot of stuff through amazon to keep the boxes coming.
Cactus says
Here in AZ we call them goatheads. Painful little buggers!
JudyL says
I think they’re the same thing and yes, they are so painful!
dezertsuz says
Great biodegradable solution!
Diana Grindel (Casoppia) says
Let me know if it works .. A neighbor tried old signs and it didn’t help any, he also tried burning them.. I think they are the same as what we call cockle burrs. They are horrible and hurt when they are in the feet, or a beloved dog’s foot.
The local garden place said the only way to get rid of them is to pull them before they get the burrs/flowers on them in the spring.
wanda j says
I use cardboard boxes I get from school each week. You see I volunteer at school making copies for the teachers each Friday now for 13 years. Each week I make between 18,000 and 22,000 so I use 4 cases of paper. So I bring the boxes home when teachers don’t need them and put down my rows. It sure keeps the weeds down so should with with stickers. I’m glad I don’t have that problem here we just have ants I have to contend with in m,y garden. I haven’t found something I can put down that isn’t harmful to us and will work. But I keep trying. Last thing I tried was grits. Did ok till it rained.Oh well.