rag weed

[rhoda_bruce]

I'm not satisfied that I brought enough produce in my house from our garden last year....or from a few years actually, so I'm planning on severely increasing my gardening capacity, but I need to take care of a really bad rag weed problem.
The area I'm planning on putting into raised beds is around my hives and often gets overgrown with ragweed.
DH is big on poisons, but I've been just pulling out the stuff and letting it dry out on the ground, freed of dirt (which I shook off of the roots. I'm thinking I will go with a cover crop, like rye or clover, which will enrich the soil, stay shorter, smother out the weeds, taste great to my goats and flocks and hopefully one or two other things that I may not even be considering right now.
I figure a cover crop will be easier to clean up, in small sections, if I should decide on putting up a bed, than the weeds, so some areas won't be remain planted thru the season, but it won't be wasted......chickens can take care of whatever I pull up.
I am in the deep south. VERY DEEP. I'd appreciate suggestions that would help me with my problem.

 

[baymule]

Could you open up paper feed sacks, or newspapers, or cardboard boxes and use them to smother out the ragweed? I "mulch" my garden with paper feed sacks held down by bricks to keep them from blowing away and they make gardening practically weed free for me.

 

[rhoda_bruce]

I could try to mulch, but the chickens won't get much outta that after I'm done with the spring gardening, but its a plan. I am really close to ordering a chipper/shreader for that purpose.
I was hoping what I wanted to do was common and that it would be no problem to find the perfect cover crop, but no one seems to know and I can no longer ask my grandfather, so I went to the ag store.....he didn't know either and wasn't sure rye would grow in the heat. I'll search around. Sure I'll find something.

 

[Big_White]

Hey We have the same problem except with kudzu. It controls quite a bit of land and is an on going battle. But one thing we try to do is drive around the back feilds at least 3-4 times a week, each time puttting our right tire off the trail onto the weeds, it helps kill the kudzu and any other nuisance while allowing grass to takes its place. It is very efficient at pushing them back, and when the grass starts growing we just mow it regularly to prevent growth of anything else. Hope this gives you an idea

 

[rhoda_bruce]

It would help under normal circumstances, but the area in question is only 90 X 100 and has 4 beehives and they hate any kind of machinery. We have to suit up anytime we need to operate a weedeater or lawnmower and such. Well, I decided on clovers. The ag man helped pick the right one for our heat and it will come in next week.....enough to plant 10 to 14 acres, so I'm going to have seed for a long, long time. I suited up today and pulled the weeds out from in front of 2 of my hives which really needed it, making a clearing to about 5 feet of exposed soil.
I pulled out a few blackberry vines and transplanted them at a better location for me....along my goose pen's fence. Might do a bit more of that later. I'll kick myself if our local wild berries out do the 2 varieties DH ordered special and studied up on 2 years ago.
There are areas of our town that has kudzu and I've been tempted to harvest some of the roots for DH's cholesterol problem. I think you can cook them to act like potatoes.
We don't call our ragweeds by that name...we call it bloodweed. A little can be a good thing. A lot can get out of this world. Just today DH and I were cutting up onions for the dehydrator and he opened up his finger and started bleeding, so I sent him in the yard to find some ragweed (aka bloodweed). He claimed it helped a bit to stop the bleeding. One person's trash is another's treasure.
Still, we have our work cut out for ourselves with exposing the soil to plant all that seed next week, but it will be great when we done. I'm sure the bees will love it and I am looking forward to having a more manageable yard/garden.