Weed control, landscape cloth

I have tried all manner of weed control on the farm - tilling, mowing, rotation, mulch, spraying, and last year it was landscape cloth.  A section of old pasture was tilled in and the landscape cloth was carefully rolled out.  When performing this task, be sure to choose a day with little to no wind - much easier that way!  Rocks were collected from various piles put on top of the cloth at the end and on each seam.  It wasn't until later in the year that I was walking through the hardware store and I found out they make 'staples' to secure this stuff to the ground - I bought those for this season.

When we finally got the cloth down, it was a little late in the season and my transplants were getting root bound so not as much care was taken with the rocks to ensure that everything stayed where it should have.  The wind got underneath one section during the summer and over the winter, it took up two more sections and wrapped them around neighboring trees.  Where the cloth stayed down, the weeds are pretty much gone, although there is still some stubborn grass.  Areas without cloth are definitely covered with weeds.

The cost of this stuff can be pricey when you start talking about acres, but I am thinking that I might run each section of new field through a season or two with the cloth to help eradicate a lot of the weeds.  Long season or set it and forget it crops might get landscape cloth all the time.  It worked really well for our squash patch last year.

This section will get tilled this week and the old landscape cloth re-applied.  Some people say that you shouldn't bother rolling it up but the cash flow is meager at the moment so I will re-use and recycle it for another season.  Now I have to find the seeder that has the big holes for the squash seeds.