Roundup and tilling Garden

[wawajake]

I bought a 4 gallon container of Roundup from my rural Coop store this weekend. Wow $175 ouch !

Anyway I took a look at the 60 page instruction manual trying to find the simple instructions on what ratio of roundup to water I would use to hand spray my vegetable garden.

I turned the vegetable garden last fall (its 30 ft x 30ft ) but now that spring I see the clover is quickly sprouting the fairly black clay loam . So I figured roundup followed a week or two later by tilling with my new Agri 40" tiller. (tiller arrives next week ya!)

But no simple instructions in that Roundup book ! I suspect its a 10 to one ratio and just spray on a sunny day (with sun forecast for next 48 hours) But now I am not so sure how much of this ratio to put on garden when I am using a backpack sprayer. Do I just make moist and keep moving spray wand ? How many gallons of my mix would do that area ?
Any suggestions ???

jake

 

[nmu98]

If it is the Agriculture stuff, Mix it at a 1.5 to 2 ounce per gallon mixture. Its hard to say how much you need to mix when using a backpack sprayer. I would simply mix it as you need it. BTW, you can now buy generic round up for about 1/3 of the cost of the real stuff....

 

[dooleysm]

If it were me, I would avoid chemicals in my garden. You've got a nice tiller on the way, let it do the work and keep the chemicals out of your garden.

If you're going to till anyway, I don't see any advantage to round up first?

 

[MMagis]

Are you sure you needed 4 GALLONS of concentrate? For a 30 ft x 30 ft garden you could have gotten by with just a pint. Somewhere in those instructions it will say, but I mix standard 41% gly at 2.5 oz per gallon when spraying established grass. I'm sure 1.5 - 2 oz per gallon will work fine for what you're doing. Do it on a day you don't expect rain for the next 4 hours or more. I've sprayed my 50 ft x 25 ft garden before and only used about a gallon. It doesn't take much, just a few drops per plant. Any chance you can take that back and get a smaller amount? I'd hate to see you spend that much when you could buy a little $10 container of generic glyphosate from Walmart.
dooleysm makes a good point. Though there really isn't any risk in using glyphosate, I'm not sure you really need to.

 

[MarkV]

Well roundup and its generic partners become inert when they contact the ground so I don't have an issue when used in the garden. Farmers use it on crops we eat every day. It does not that the much and it only takes a misting, no need to soak the weeds.

MarkV

 

[greenmule]

Well,you need to just till the clover weeds in,and don't use that roundup,I plant clover and winter rye in my garden in the fall as a cover crop,than till it in come spring,its called green gold by those yuppie farmers!

You need to take a gardening 101 class.

 

[dooleysm]

Without getting into a whole big deal about it, given a choice between veggies grown in ground treated with roundup vs. those grown in ground without roundup, I would choose the no roundup. I'm not going to crucify someone for choosing differently from me.

That said though, I see no value in killing the weeds twice. I think it's a waste of time and money. That roundup is a valuable tool, I would definitely put it to use, just not in a garden that is going to get tilled up in a week or two.

 

[wawajake]

Unfortunately the canadian province of Ontario has banned all sorts of herbicides and it came into effect this spring.
With only a few exceptions (including farmers) So considering the COOP manager knew I had 40 acres not far from him, he sold it too me without needing to show my "farm card' So of course I don't need 4 gallons for garden !!!! , but I now will have enough for many years including if I want to try it on one of of my abandoned hay fields .
So please understand I am not foolish .
But I see farmers in area till a one or two acre field and not a weed grows on it until they plant in spring.So they must use roundup .
Considering both my wife and I have bad backs, we are not about to do the same amount of weeding we did last year. So hope to start with a semi clean slate of weedfree and then use straw between rows to keep them at bay during summer and till and roundup maybe in fall again. But will research more
signed
hobby farmer just trying to get better with technology
jake

 

[MarkV]

Another method that works well, maybe even better in Ontario, is to cover the area with black plastic. Kills the weeds and warms the soil earlier for early planting.

MarkV

 

[weedpharma]

Does anyone know the shelf life of glyphosate? I have used mine over many years but curios to know.

Weedpharma