i am a 2nd year gardener. last year i had problem with nut grass. can anyone tell me how to kill not grass?

Question

they took over my garden last year. Would like to have a better crop this year.

Answer 1

Nutgrass is a royal pain. Under optimum conditions, a network of nutgrass plants arising from one tuber can produce 100 or more tubers in about 100 days. About 80–95 percent of the tubers are located within the top 6 inches of soil. However, tubers have been reported to be present as deep as 18 inches. Nutgrass flowers quite profusely, but the seeds seldom actually germinate. It typically spreads by the formation of tubers which can lie dormant in the soil for up to 2 years.

Control options:
1. Cultivation - Once tubers form, they can remain viable in soils for at least two years if they retain moisture. They can survive even when soils are very dry for short periods. However, if tubers are brought to the soil surface for about one week under sunny conditions, they dry out and die. Populations of viable nutgrass tubers can be dramatically reduced by repeatedly turning the soil at one to two-week intervals to expose the tubers to the sun. Tuber dormancy is perhaps the most important of the adaptations that enable nutgrass to persist. Dormancy prevents tubers in the soil from sprouting all at once, so a potential reservoir for new plants is maintained. This is the reason you will find nutgrass emerging after you
thought you controlled it with herbicide or by weeding.

2. Herbicide - There are some herbicides that are effective, but you will have to use it several times due to the dormancy issue.

3. Weeding - When hand-weeding, the wiry connections between tubers make them easier to remove than if the connections have been severed by soil cultivation. The tuber or basal bulb of an emerged shoot must be removed to control nutgrass.

4. Digging - Clipping the topgrowth is ineffective, and an inch or so of new growth will emerge the following day. Patient gardeners can dig up and remove tubers from the soil and greatly reduce the nutgrass population. Good luck. You've got a lot of work ahead.

Answer 2

The chemical treatment kills what is there, but then it wears out, and new seeds germinate and grow.
Make rich soil and weeds will not thrive. Weeds like poor soil, and if they even come up in rich soil, they will quickly die out.
Instead of chemicals, put sugar, at the rate of 4 pounds per 1000 sq.ft. Water it in well.
Next spring, when you would ordinarily feed, use sugar abain, and also corn meal gluten at the rate of 2o pounds per 1000 sq.ft.
Curn gluten meal is the by product after they make corn syrup.
Several organic companies put it out now, under various brand names. Nurseries that carry a wide variety of organic products should have it, or you may be able to get it at feed stores.
Sugar is just the white sugar you use for cooking etc.
When the sugar does is nourish the beneficial microbes that enrich your soil.
The richness of the soil is what gets rid of the weeds.
Corn gluten meal, in addition to being full of nutrients for the soil, is a very good fungicide.
That is really all you need to do, and just water, mow and edge, to have a beautiful lawn.
No chemicals of any kind, or they undo your organics and cancel out the benefits.