My entire back yard is overrun with weeds and I’d like to kill them off (naturally) so that I can start to develop the space. I’ve done some research and solarization and occultation seem to be effective ways to do this, but I’m not sure which is the better option. I live in Southern Ontario and it’s currently very hot. Any advice/recommendations are appreciated!
by Novel-Platypus-4896
9 Comments
1. What are you thinking of doing to the area?
2. What “weeds” are there?
3. You could also cover the area in cardboard, then cover that with soil, and finally plant your plants.
When you say “weeds”, can you be more specific? Is it violets, clover?
I’m assuming you’re talking about creeping charlie? You’re going to find people here that say that stuff is a-okay!
Solarization is the only non-chemical way to get rid of them. You need to do the full yard. What’s your goal here? What will you convert the ground cover to?
It might be hot for a little while longer, but with those trees, you don’t really have enough time left in the season to solarize properly.
Tarping would work. But also, what do you want to grow here after the dirt is bare? Say you tarp this space for 6 weeks. You’d then be at the end of September with a mostly dirt backyard. Growing anything that time of year is tricky / limited.
When you say occultation, I’m assuming that you’re not talking about candles, pentagrams, and sacrificial goats, right? 😂
Occultation would be a lot more reliable in your climate, it may be hot now but true solarization takes a long time and needs reliably hot temperatures and sunlight throughout the process. Just start tarping it asap, it needs to be done during its growing season, and you’ll want time to check your progress, clear dead vegetation, and possibly do a few more rounds before winter.
You are fairly late in the year for solarization. You need typically at.least 6 weeks of sun and heat to do it properly, but I would go even longer, like 2 or 3 months, if you could. I recently solarized two big patches in my yard. One Sat for 3 months. The other Sat for 6 weeks. The 6 weeks patch has a LOT of invasive and some hardy grasses returning. The 3 month patch has nothing.
If you want to plant this fall, I recommend doing cardboard/sheet mulch, then digging down and cutting through cardboard to plant.
If you can wait until next year, then you could solarize for like May/June/July or something like that and plant in fall.
You need full sun for solarization. There are a lot of trees in your photo so I don’t know if you have full sun.
Double comment, but check out prairie moon nursery for information on site prep. It’s in a weird spot on the web page, but it’s helpful. Look into native plants while you are there once established, they take less upkeep than non-natives.