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I receive a fair amount of calls on lawn concerns and I always refer them to other Master Gardeners who know something about lawns. I often joke by saying if it were not for quack, crabgrass, purslane, dandelions and creeping Charlie; my farm lawn wouldn't have any green. Well, the joke is on me when some of those weeds are in the garden, that isn't so funny. I imagine that the weeds I am writing about are in other gardens also.

There are many words and phrases that describe quack grass, some I can't put in this paper. Also known as couchgrass it is a cool-season perennial that easily survives frigid winters. It spreads by seeds and rhizomes (underground roots). These rhizomes produce buds that sprout underground into new plants. Quackgrass has rings of root hairs every one fourth to one inch along its long white rhizomes, most of which are found in the top four inches of soil.

Digging out and pulling up quackgrass is always the best way to get rid of it. Tilling may make the garden look nice, but it's just what quack loves. The tiller won't kill the rhizomes but rather break them off causing them to spread throughout the garden also the tiller may bury the roots and they can wait a couple of years to sprout.

Mulching is good in the garden for conserving moisture and controlling weeds. Most weeds can be controlled even if the mulch is put right over the weeds. This is not true with quackgrass. Before you put down mulch all the rhizomes must be removed. One summer I put down plastic and grass mulch on both sides of a new raspberry patch. The next spring when I removed the plastic and mulch the quack had grown through the plastic and the rhizomes were all over the patch, some of them were four to six feet long.

I earlier wrote an article on planning ahead for next year's blueberries, asparagus, and raspberries. First, select a site that is sunny and well drained. Next, clear the area of weeds. Here's where an herbicide comes in. Since quack is one of the first weeds to show up in the spring, it can be applied when it is at least six inches high. About this time of the summer crabgrass is ready to take its place. When you are convinced that all weeds have been eliminated, start tilling and working up the soil. You may need one more application of a herbicide in the fall. This preparation should make planting much easier come spring.

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