I posted this question at another forum as we are having so much rain, it is not drying out enough to hoe the garden. It sorta got hoed 4 days ago until the rain came back and I had to leave it . . . soaked to my skin. Had a no rain day Wed but it was too wet and now it will probably rain through the week-end.

Over there was a suggestion of putting down straw to choke out the weeds. The weeds are about 2-3 inches high; how thick would I spread straw over that to choke the weeds?

Any other suggestions?

Last Fall we tilled 10 yr old horse manure into the garden so it will be a weedier year, I suppose.

The tomatoes are doing better here than the ones we have growing at the house in Orange County, CA.

Why? the manure here for sure and we are having higher daytime temps than OC. Lately their temps have been mid 70's and in Iowa it has been a lot of 80 degree days . . . the norm here would be more in the 70's.
Couple that with all the rain we are getting and the tomatoes are acting like they are on steroids.

Of course it is still dependent on Mother Nature playing it out this way for the rest of the summer.

I mulch my tomatoes with straw, 3-4 inches and have very few weeds.

Hi Paul,
I just came back from the farm and that's exactly what I did. I'll report how it does.

I am on my way to the farm this morning to weed and see how well the straw is working. Wish me luck.

You'll need to replace it periodically throughout the summer as the wind blows some away and also it breaks down somewhat.

I guess it reduce weeds by 80-90%

Daniel comes and helps out on Fridays . . whatever we need. We weeded for 3 hours (that would have been 6 if just one person had done it). I have to say it's looking good.

I put up chicken wire all the way around hoping to discourage bunnies and deer. The green beans at the far end of the garden don't have chicken wire around them and remain untouched due to the effectiveness of the Plant Skyd.
The wire also keeps the straw so it can't blow away. You also don't get as mudding with all that nice clean straw to sit on while weeding.

The only place weeds came through was where we didn't get it 6" thick. Amazing . . . it's been a week since we put it down. I lifted up the 6" thick parts and there was not one weed under there. Couldn't even see dead ones . . gone . . nada!

I sure wish I had done this other years.

Oh, and the green beans are just starting to bloom!


When I found straw that was wet I just flipped it so dry was on the bottom and wet on top so it could dry out.

The plants are looking very healthy!