[permaculture-oceania] Would a thick mulch kill grass? anotherposting on this

[Terry Haven]

Hi Terry great name I must say....
    Rather then fill this list serve up with a heap of suggestions..may i
strongly suggest you visit the Permaculture Research Institute or P.R.I
bulliten board.
On this board we discuss your problems allmost every day,by experts as well
as new commers to Permaculture...

Geoff Lawton is the Boards owner
and hes a long term respected Permie

Terry Haven
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Terry Leahy" <Terry.Leahy at newcastle.edu.au>
To: <permaculture-oceania at lists.cat.org.au>
Sent: Wednesday, August 23, 2006 12:52 PM
Subject: Re: [permaculture-oceania] Would a thick mulch kill grass?
anotherposting on this


> Dear Permies,
>
> I was thinking about this some more.  The ideal thing is definitely to
mulch around the quick growing legume trees that you plant first - about 50
cm deep but not right up to the trunk and maybe a metre wide.  But I also
note that my bush regen group in Wangi established bush plantings quite
effectively by deep ripping on contours and just planting into the rips
without any other treatment - a fertiliser pellet is good.  Plant in the
wettest period (Feb March for us on east coast).  In those cases we planted
eucalypts and wattles for the most part and would only go to smaller and
slow growing natives later.  Would not advise eucalypts if you later want to
establish rainforest species for bush tucker.  Also a fire risk.
>
> On another occasion I used a mattock to dig fish scale swales - about half
a metre deep and two metres long on the contour and planted rainforest trees
in the mound on the down side of the swale.  This was a sloping site.  I
pulled up the lantana and just went for it.  I think I might have mulched a
bit to begin with but later just removed really problematic weeds.  This
also worked well for fruit trees - apple, mulberry etc.  Again, the ultimate
aim was to shade out grasses which eventually happened.  A detailed
description of site establishment for an orchard is Holmgren's book on
Hepburn - go to his website to find out how to buy this - it is a ripper!
>
> Seeds for quick growing legume trees and bushes can be bought from seed
supply catalogue places - see Organic Gardener in ABC shops for ads for
these companies - e.g. Green Harvest etc.    Dont forget to soak overnight
in hot water before planting them out,
>
> Terry
>
> >>> mikro2nd at gmail.com Tuesday, 22 August 2006 7:53 pm >>>
> On 21/08/06, Paul Darrington <paul.darrington at optusnet.com> wrote:
>
> > I've got about 3 acres of grass to kill, progressivley, & am wondering
how
> > thick mulch would have to be before grass will not grow through it.
>
> I would guess that, in part, it depends on the variety of grass(es)...
>  I have been almost-totally unsuccessful at killing off Kikuyu grass
> with a thick (30-40cm) mulch of wood shavings (could not source enough
> cardboard for the area in question, but, based on experience, I'm sure
> it would have only delayed the regrowth of the grass).
>
> > For our own block, we want to kill the grass (glyphosphate), mow & till
(if
> > need be), and then sow with a lucerne / chicory / clover mix.
> > This is intended to form a living, N fixing ground cover in which we can
> > then plant our trees into.
>
> Would love to hear of alternatives to this, as I am faces with approx
> 1acre of the same problem, and really, /really/ don't want to resort
> to roundup, but digging grass out by hand will take me too many years.
>
> -- 
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>
> TechStuff: http://mikro2nd.net/blog/mike/
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>
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