Permaculture way to handle Couch grass (Elymus repens)

Hi all,

i am sold on the idea of weed free market garden beds, so i am trying it this year.
Paths are about 15 cm (ca. 6 inch) of wood chips and the beds are the same height of compost.

Most weeds here are easy to take care of, but couch grass (Elymus repens) really surprised me.
It grows through basically everything you would put in a growing area. I have seen it growing through a wood chip,
it did not even bother to grow aroud it, just went straight through the wood!

Weeding it is extremely time consunimg, on average i need about 5-10 minutes per metre of bed, and i do this twice per week.
This is too munch! (i really understand why some are tempted to use herbicides here).

So i need a smarter/more permaculture way to handle it.
(I am aware that "weed free permaculutre" is an oxymoron, but hear me out)

I am not even sure if i am winning the fight, so i have some basic questions:

1. When do actually deprive the plant from energy?
Sometimes when i pluck a fresh shot, i unearth a nice piece of rizome (up to 15 inches),
but most of the time i get only litte more than what was visible on the surface.

Sure thing when i get a big chunk of rhizome it is an energy-negative transaktion for the plant,
but how munch time do i have to pluck a shot after it surfaced and started photosystesis before the plant compensated
for the initial energy for growing this shot?

2. Does the grass outside of the beds pump energy into the rizomes underneath the beds?
And if so, how wide should a perimeter be to stop this from happening?

3. Does the plant go into a "hard to pluck" mode with short predetermined breaking points?
After some time of plucking i do not unearth the big juicy rizomes, but only short pieces,
which are anchored into the ground like a tree! The question is, is this just the part where the plant grew out of original soil horizon (remeber, i have 6 inch of compost on top of the original soil),
or is the plant more like "Damn i have been plucked...again...better anchor myself harder into the ground and get shorter breaking points!"?

4. Bed preparation to weaken the plant
What seems to help is to put something like a rainbarrel on the ground and let it sit for a couple of months. Then when i remove the barrel,
every plant underneath is dead...except for the couch grass, which just turned white and can then be removed..at least partially.

My latest expermient is to just mulch over the existing meadow with a big layer of hay...still couch grass shots make it through the hay,
but much less than otherwise...i really hope that a bed mulched this way this year will be almost couch grass free next year.
At least this is what i like to believe.

5. Cover Crops
I plantet some squash and mulched the area with hay, hoping that when the hay breaks down the squash will make
enough shade to get rid of the couch grass...however when i look at the grass coming up between my existing crops,
i doubt this will work. We will see.


6. Couch grass recipies
I have tased some rizomes...they tase edible but not really like something i enjoy eating. I have read that the rizomes can
be dried and ground up like flour. Does anyone have specific recipies for couch grass?
Would be munch more rewarding if i could eat it, because then i can rebrand my weeding into harvesting.


So any other ideas/brainstorming or recommendations?
I really need to figure out how to handle this weed more efficently, otherwise i cannot transition to live as a market gardener.


PS: I am glad that i did not quit my job to become a market garden farmer,
because with my current aproach i could never keep up with this weed on a area large enough
to be supporting my expenses.

PPS: Still i do not hate the plant and i sure don't want to eradicate it on the whole property...i leave it alone on most parts of the garden and even let it grow big before i occasionally scythe it down. It is a nice plant in general,
i just don't want it in the relatively small market garden area.

Couch grass is deep rooted, so it should bring extra nitrogen to the garden if it can be added to your compost.

Also a garden that incorporates weeds as opposed to eliminating them, is less attractive to pests because they will be more confused.

You can also experiment with planting a row or 2 of potatoes around the perimeter of your weed free garden. The potato plants will smother the weeds and prevent root infiltration from the outside.

Also any weeds that do infiltrate the barrier will come out when you harvest the potatoes...

Hello. I have massive amounts of this grass in my garden. I don't have much in the way of solutions to give you, but I wanted to warn you about putting the rhizomes in your compost.  They do not die easily, and can take root in there.  Then they basically eat your compost pile, making an mat you have to sift through to get the remaining compost.  It's like the magical thorns that grew around Sleeping Beauty's castle.  You're not getting through.  
When you can use it, a garden fork works wonders for pulling  out the rhizomes, but of course, you can't do that too close to other plants without disturbing their roots.  I've tried smothering with grass clippings.  So far they eventually grow through, but it does slow them down and make them easier to pull.  I'd love to hear better solutions though.
I've been leaving the rhizomes in their own shallow piles,  so they can dry out.  Eventually I plan to burn them.
I'm glad you still find it in your heart to love the Elymus Repens.  It is my mortal enemy.  I refuse to see the good in its heart.

William Kellogg wrote:
You can also experiment with planting a row or 2 of potatoes around the perimeter of your weed free garden. The potato plants will smother the weeds and prevent root infiltration

I'm sorry to say that this will not work with couch grass. I've had numerous potatoes pierced deeply with couch grass. This stuff is like underground daggers. I've bled from pulling them and accidentally grabbing the pointy end of the rhizome. They go through deep layers of newspaper, cardboard, landscape cloth, etc. A potato is nothing to them. And they seem to have enough energy to put up sprouts with heavy foliage above. The massive underground root/rhizome system supports exploring into sub-prime locations.

The only thing that helped for me was deep mulching. The grass will start to grow through the top fluffy layer, making it easy to pull large strands. This doesn't stop it from infiltrating from outside the garden beds. I think a moat with flaming oil might work for that. (cue ominous music) .....Maybe.

R. Han wrote:

1. When do actually deprive the plant from energy?

This is a very good question. I wonder the same thing about bracken, which is my problem plant.

2. Does the grass outside of the beds pump energy into the rizomes underneath the beds?
And if so, how wide should a perimeter be to stop this from happening?

Yes, it does. I don't know how wide a perimeteror, but it's probably impractically wide. It sounds like your beds are permanent, so could you use an edging tool to at least keep the grass in the beds from being fed from outside? That might be a lot of work.

5. Cover Crops
I plantet some squash and mulched the area with hay, hoping that when the hay breaks down the squash will make
enough shade to get rid of the couch grass...however when i look at the grass coming up between my existing crops,
i doubt this will work. We will see..

I think it will help. I have relatively little couch grass here, mostly other types that are easier to deal with. I do have a bit in one of my comfrey borders, and the comfrey definitely weakens it. I weed under that border occasionally, and there's only ever a few spindly plants.

Consistent, deep mulching will help a lot. It can take a while, and you have to stay on top of it, but it will help. I end up with a lot of those paper leaf bags from scrounging other people's yard waste. I find they work better than cardboard for smothering. If I've got some really stubborn grass, I'll put two or three leaf bags down, then 20-30cm mulch. Sometimes I'll even start off the  mulch pile with something like maple leaves that form a mat. It does work, but, like I said, you need to stick with it.

Robin Katz wrote: I've had numerous potatoes pierced deeply with couch grass.

Hahaha, I've had this too! I swore a lot the first time I saw it. Now, it's no big deal. I just consider myself lucky theres a potato there at all and the gophers didn't eat all of them. 😁

Jan White wrote:

I wonder the same thing about bracken, which is my problem plant.

To quote Geoff Lawton, "Like other plants that germinate after fires, Bracken has the ability to harvest potassium from deep in the soil and bring it to the surface. Once the potassium balance is returned, the germination condition changes, and the bracken fern becomes redundant and it fades out."

After reading that, I admit I still tend to pull bracken, but I try to "chop and drop" it in place to leave the potassium near the surface. That may not work if you've got animals that you don't want eating it!

I wish we would know it. If it is the same as quackgrass, it is extremely agressive, and the only way that I have heard that works is to dig a foot deep and wide trench all around the garden as their roots are not super deep and they can't cross air barrier that far, and then cover with black plastic the garden area for a year to kill it all out. Obviously, not very permaculture.

For couch grass I have found that deep mulch, cardboard or weed barrier fabric will take two years to kill it in a no dig way. And the soil will be better for it. There's no other way but to deprive it of light entirely and come back to the area much later.

I too suffer from couch grass in my vegetable garden.  It will grow up to 1.5 metre (4.5 feet)  a year if left unchecked including under and through whatever is in its way.  The solution I am working on is to put in a barrier around the veg beds. This needs to  be up to about one foot deep and made of something the couch grass will not grow through.   Ideas so far are heavy plastic - like bamboo barriers, wood- but this rots in about five years here, or old metal sheets cut to shape.

In the meantime I am trying the old fashioned method of a  trench at the edge of the bed which goes about 6 inches below soil level and is kept clear.  Roots cannot cross the air!  Provided I keep on top of keeping this trench clear I mostly stop the couch grass coming into the veg beds.
The problem then shifts to keeping the grass short on the outside of the beds where it will hang into the trench and make a lovely home for slugs and snails!

to get this "grass"  saw rye in september. Let it grow over the winter. Succes

Greetings Lèo

If you think that couch grass is bad try yellow nutsedge. I have a commercial landscape fabric covering the ground that has elderberries every ten feet. Nutsedge grows through the fabric. I've seen it penetrate the asphalt at the edge of the pavement in from of my house. I plan an all attack the winter by tilling one bed at a time deeply. I know that this isn't the best way to garden but with nutsedge this is war. After the tilling I will dig a shovels width at least 12 inches deep around the edges of the beds and install a corrugated sheet metal roofing section by driving it into the trench at least 4 inches and letting it extend out of the ground by 8 inches. The top edge will be rendered safe with the addition a a couple of pieces of scrap lumber. I am not a market gardener so my growing area is most likely much smaller than yours is. And I know that this isn't much help for your situation, but it does go to show that you are not alone in the fight with  invasive grass.
I've had to do this in several places that I'm trying to grow in.

I agree and sympathize with almost all of the ideas and approaches on this feed following the first 5 days. I've lost too many hours trying various approaches, but I'm feeling good about this summer's approach. In 2019 for one of our market gardens 50' X 100', we tilled and mulched the perimeter. Grass snuck in from outside the perimeter and proliferated a bit from pieces we missed within. It always wins when you don't weed. And not weeding just leads to perennial weeds that gradually get even more established ("Succession") that outcompete your annual veg. Which is fine if you're working on a personal or I-don't-care scale. We care about minimum-disturbance and biodiversity to a great degree, but context is key. Our annual veg garden already has diversity within, and is surrounded by biodiversity with more planned. 3 years on, our last approach has graded as, um, "AIN'T GOOD 'NUFF". So, the latest twist, which I'm pretty confident about:

#1: Weed the perimeter, making sure every PERIMETER bed has at least 2-4 feet of path around it. Shovels, digging forks, whatever needed.  
#2: Till the perimeter path site. Then... weed it again! Shovels, digging forks, whatever needed. Note that weeding MAY require taking out productive edge perennials that do or will harbor perennial weeds. Rake the perimeter so that it drains slightly towards the beds.
#3: Ditch the eventual exterior edge as deep as you have equipment, soil, or energy for. I'm going at 4-6".
#4: Cover perimeter ideally in post-industrial pore-free sheet goods. Too many weeds will find their way through almost all (all?) fabrics with pores. Ones we've tried with success: Rubber mats tossed away by schools and businesses because they got too nasty, pond liner roofing rescued from commercial flat roof recovering jobs, industrial belts and *controversy warning* recycled vinyl billboard signs cut and folded as needed. Do NOT bring said materials right up to the edge of the beds. Leave 1 foot or so space unless you're also using some cardboard underneath.
#5: Cover materials with mulch to protect them from UV, make prettier, and allow for mulch to break down into compost which you can push onto beds over time.
#6: Consider covering exterior edge of perimeter material (under the mulch) with some sort of edging--scrap wood, aluminum, whatever you have or can justify--to help fight edge degradation, assist in pegging it all down if needed, make any mowing easier, and retain the mulch.
#7: Maintain. But addressing weeds only within the garden is WAY easier than dealing with those AND ones sneaking in from outside.

USED BILLBOARD SIGNS OH MY
Until I got a used high tunnel last winter, I used one of these that's probable 20'x30' that was left over from a political campaign. She didn't win. But I did this thing is now going on three years old and still kills weeds like it's nobody's business. It has gone a little stiff and is hard to handle by myself.
Now i'm using the recycled plastic cover from the high tunnel.
I agree it takes lots of determination to stop some of these weeds/grass from taking over, I have found that a metal edge works best for me. But it has to go deep enough to keep the sneaky pest out.

Joy Oasis wrote:I wish we would know it. If it is the same as quackgrass, it is extremely agressive, and the only way that I have heard that works is to dig a foot deep and wide trench all around the garden as their roots are not super deep and they can't cross air barrier that far, and then cover with black plastic the garden area for a year to kill it all out. Obviously, not very permaculture.

Yes: Elymus Repens is known in the US as "Quack grass" and it is as obnoxious as all the other posters have stated. I'm lucky in that I live in sand country and elymus Repens is much easier to pull out of sand than out of clay!
A few things to know:
* Mowing it just encourages the root system to shoot more shoots with shorter distances between nodes. And the tips which you flick off with the mower will find a way to re-root, so nope. that's not the way to go.
* Covering it will work if you do a solarization of the soil, essentially harvesting the power of the sun to burn whatever is showing above ground. You might try that with the pile that you've removed. Realize that only the grass that is above ground will be affected. The rhizomes will burrow on! The nice thing is that since all other vegetation is dead once you pull the plastic or tarp or whatever you have used, your quack grass will be sticking out like a sore thumb and won't mesh with the other vegetation: It will be just you versus the quack grass. Easy Peasy.
* It is extremely aggressive, and even one little node will at the first rain start shooting across your whole property.
* sheep: They will graze everything to death if you concentrate them on that patch. They will probably be hungry, though. I don't have sheep and I'm not sure I'd want to do that.
* Seed production is generally 25 to 40 seeds per plant, but can range from 15 up to 400 seeds, so if you allow it to seed, you are toast! :Your problem will be multiplied 15-400 times in one season. The first thing to do is therefore to prevent it from seeding.
*Because it is self sterile and wind pollinated, seeds will travel and you can't really hope to ever *eradicate* the problem: Ditches will bring these seeds right back in your garden. But if that is the only way they can get in, vigilance is key.
Now, for what we have to fight it:
* Chemicals, yeah, but then you can't grow anything else and as soon at the effect wanes, you will again be assaulted by elymus repens. You may also make is resistant to ... whatever you've used, so no. And I won't mention what you are doing to groundwater, to your private well and to your neighbor's well.
*weed barriers: Horizontal weed barriers are no match for elymus repens: even if they were any good, elymus will simply continue pushing through: I have placed several layers of "weed barrier" to absolutely no avail: E.R grows right through in one season.
*Now, *vertical barriers*  are much more effective: Like any weed/ stolons, rhizomes, they follow the path of least resistance.
*Making raised beds is effective but the soil has to be at the same level, more or less on both sides: A raised bed that projects up from the original level is not so good: Once the rhizome passes under the plank or the cement block, you've lost. Making raised beds, though is helpful in that it limits where you feel you have to eradicate: You don't need to garden the whole world, just your raised bed. It sets your limits, within which you can 'win'.
* Fire. Well. if the grass is dry enough and you are worried about seed dispersal, it might be a way to kill what's above ground... and next week, after the first rain, you will be back at it.
* Pulling the darn thing. Yep, I'm afraid we are back to that.
My husband welds pretty well and he made me a tool basically uniting a strong metal claw like you use to get close to your plants, on your hands and knees, with an all metal handle. It feels heavy, but nothing will dismantle that. The handle is just shy of 6 ft, which gives you pretty good leverage when you plant it over Elymus Repens. Then you pull and you need to make sure to follow every rhizome/ stolon. The best time for that treatment is just after a small rain, when the ground is moist and will release the roots and the grass is no longer wet. Now, remember that I'm in a sandbox. When the ground is parched the roots will grow downward pretty fast, so don't wait until the grass has a chance to do that...
How to dispose of it? I suffocate them in a large plastic bag, like the strong black ones you take your trash to the dump with. [Since the darn plastic will off-gas anyway, you might as well give this grass the full treatment].  Then you can burn it in a metal barrel, minus the plastic bag, of course. Alternately, you can suffocate with water: pack it in a plastic barrel and add water until it rots. I'll warn you, though : It takes a long time to decomp appropriately.
I hope this will help all the victims of Elymus Repens to at least make the problem manageable.

R. Han....This is my "go-to" weed, grass and unwanted vegetation tool.    https://www.amazon.com/Hula-Scuffle-Long-Fiberglass-Handle/dp/B0055J4B0G/ref=asc_df_B0055J4B0G/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=532657540274&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=8054337866607932592&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9016444&hvtargid=pla-1371466936039&psc=1
It is always with me when I go to my garden and flower beds.(It'll give you a good ab workout too)  Stick with the wood chips. It will slow down the buggers and they are easier to hoe than on solid ground...If you keep after them daily, you will eventually gain the upper hand and be able to maintain.
I agree to not put anything with rhizomes on your compost pile...It will borrow to Hades (AND BACK!)

Since this will be a full time job for someone to control this grass in that one garden area, you may as well assign the job to animals, install a poultry tunnel around the perimeter, and let the chickens scratch!

William Kellogg wrote:
Since this will be a full time job for someone to control this grass in that one garden area, you may as well assign the job to animals, install a poultry tunnel around the perimeter, and let the chickens scratch!

Ha ha! I like this idea - can any chicken keepers confirm they like couch grass? I suppose they'd need rotating....and I feel, slightly more head room, although that might be the photo angle.

1. When do actually deprive the plant from energy?

 When it has put all its energy into growing new rhizomes near the surface and then you completely remove them.
This is my step by step proven method.   Mow surrounding area and use it to mulch as deeply as possible.  Cover that with as heavy and impenetrable material as you have available. In my case old tarps and discarded carpet.  Everything will decompose except the Elymus repens; it will but all its energy from deep roots into colonizing this rich new environment forming great curls of roots on and near the surface.  The decomposition critters will have left a soft easily forked soil so carefully lift the curls of roots out without breaking them.  Almost possible to get all of them if the soil is soft enough.  Repeat the prosses but this time in strips or with planting holes and transplant things like squash or melons to grow on top of the carpet or other cover.  Then repeat the forking prosses after harvest and cover again.

2. Does the grass outside of the beds pump energy into the rizomes underneath the beds?
And if so, how wide should a perimeter be to stop this from happening?

3. Does the plant go into a "hard to pluck" mode with short predetermined breaking points?

Point 2 was fairly well covered so plan on invasion prevention.
3. yes! That is why I developed the grow it out method.

4. Bed preparation to weaken the plant
What seems to help is to put something like a rainbarrel on the ground and let it sit for a couple of months. Then when i remove the barrel,
every plant underneath is dead...except for the couch grass, which just turned white and can then be removed..at least partially.

Good observation it was what I used to develop my method.

5. Cover Crops
I plantet some squash and mulched the area with hay, hoping that when the hay breaks down the squash will make
enough shade to get rid of the couch grass...however when i look at the grass coming up between my existing crops,
i doubt this will work. We will see.

 That is why the penetration resistant barrier has to be used and the forking repeated after harvest and before each planting until you have very soft soil that the roots will always pull out.

6. Couch grass recipies

Eat them if you wish but do not let them touch the ground again.  My grandfather hung them on the fence all summer thinking they would be dead and he could compost them; they grew.