I’m thinking about putting down corn gluten meal as a fall pre-emergent to keep my garden from getting overrun with weeds this winter. I am trying no till in the portion of the garden where the corn gluten meal would be going and I use straw bales to help keep the weeds down during the summer. Would corn gluten meal be effective in the winter? Also, if I put it down in September - October, would it have any negative effects on the seeds I plant in the spring around March through May? Thanks!
17-19 years ago I worked for an all organic lawn/tree/turf company and corn gluten meal applications were available. I never saw a single landscape where corn gluten meal had any effect on weeds.
Dax
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We bought a bucket of corn gluten meal one year but couldn’t see the effect, but we only tried it one year, maybe two, iirc
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I classify it as fertilizer.
Dax
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I have used it every year for several years now ( want to be more organic). I don’t think it works, either.
It sounds like corn gluten meal is not the way to go for a fall pre-emergent. Any other recommended pre-emergents to put down in the fall and keep weeds from overtaking the garden in the winter? Since I won’t be tilling in the spring in this portion of the garden, I’d like to not have to weed the area just to start planning in the spring. I’m keeping the straw down I put down this summer but I don’t know if that will keep all the weeds down, especially the ones in the gaps between the straw where my vegetable plants grow in the summer.
How about a heavy tarp or some carpet? After removing an old fence, I mulched the weedy fencerow area this summer with some cut-up camping airbeds. I have been slowly expanding my garden area into an abandoned weedy field using some carpet pieces that I move into the weeds farther each year. In the spring I move the carpet onto a new area and till the newly-bare area with my Troybuilt. I should probably just hire someone with a plow, but too cheap to do that.
Lots of mulch. Can’t think of anything that works better than wood chips (well yes, cardboard, weed fabric, tarps, etc. but you’re not doing your soil any justice suffocating it.)
Dax
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Sometimes I use shredded fall leaves on my planting areas with wood chip mulch in the walking spaces.