Bob91403
05-21-2010, 10:51 AM
I'm currently renovating my vegetable garden. It used to be lawn, two years ago (St. Augustine). I've had to resort to a method I learned in junior high school horticulture class. I'm currently putting all of the soil through a 3/8" wire screen. Removing all rocks, and rhizomes. I tried using roundup. It only kills what's above ground, a month later it comes back. It wont kill rhizomes. I've got 240 cubic feet of soil that I'm sifting by hand (12'x20'x1'deep). It's a lot of work, but it's the only way I know to get rid of them. The biggest benefit I see is that I now have the loosest, fluffiest soil you could imagine. After it's amended, it will take moisture and roots a lot better than the hardpack I used to have. Water would only penetrate three inches. I wish there was a machine that did soil prep. A tiller would just multiply the problem (make more rhizomes). When I was in junior high school we used Dowpon. You can't get that kind of stuff anymore (too toxic). Anyone else have some thoughts on soil prep?:confused: