Composting - Cardboard to stop Bermuda from coming up? Will worms still get in?

Howdy y’all. I just set up a compost bin inside my fenced in garden and I’m curious what I should do about the Bermuda. Would a couple layers of cardboard do the trick? Will the worms still get in if I put the cardboard down? Should I invest in some weed blocker fabric instead? Appreciate the help.

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I don’t like using glycophosphate , I hand pull or smother or burn most everything but none of that works for Bermuda grass so I spray it.

Worms will eat through cardboard the only issue I see is if Bermuda roots into the compost and then you use that compost somewhere you could spread the rhizomes.

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You could plastic dual layer plastic it and then use the plastic to turn the compost (Dragging it like a sheet) Hopefully in a year or less (dunno about bermuda grass and its seeds) if you remove the stuff around it you will have bare ground for your compost and earthworms to travel freely in, you would still get red wigglers easily since they travel on the top of the ground.

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We don’t have Bermuda grass here but…I would not worry about the grass at the bottom of a compost bin, a few inches of composting material should kill the grass. Cardboard just prevents grass from reaching the sun for photosynthesis. A few inches of compost will do the same thing. Nice looking bin, by the way.

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Great looking compost bin. Worms as your aware come from the ground up and consider grasses, cardboards etc. as food. If you want something to smother grass that lets,water pass through i highly recommend carpet. It lasts for years and bermuda grass will have met its match. I dont care for the way it looks but we occasionally use it on a problem spot anyway. Cover with woodchips as an alternative but make sure they are deep. The carpet is nice be ause you can remove it easily add compost and cover again.

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I’m with Georgiagent on this. I myself would spray it, wait for it to die and then burn it. I am a little crazy about that type of grass getting into my garden. When it comes to morning glory and Bermuda grass I probably go overboard trying to kill it. LOL. Is it possible to remove the bins and spray/burn the grass completely. Georgia is correct on the rhizomes. If you were to compost on the top of the grass I would be afraid a lot of it would get into your garden and create a problem. I feel like laying cardboard down wouldn’t be enough. I would imagine it would come up through the cardboard eventually and into your compost. I guess you could also spray it, wait for it to die and then put carpet down on it. Then you would just need to maintain around the edges of the carpet.
Beautiful composting bins though!!

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If ever there were something that might give Kudzu a run for it’s money… Bermuda Grass. But I do wish you luck in preventing it from growing anywhere and everywhere, without the use of harsh chemical herbicides. I’m doubtful of any method other than that though… Ornamec or Fusilade II will control it and other weed grasses, without (according to the manufacturers) negatively affecting much else. I’ve used them in yards and in margin areas to control Japanese Stiltgrass but in/around mulch I’d be putting around edibles, hmm…

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I hear that Bermuda is nice this time of year… err nm.

I hear that Bermuda grass really does not tolerate being without Sun and so covering it in anyway that will 100% block the sun will be helpful. That said, I personally pull up the Bermuda grass in the area I wish to garden (Grow, Compost etc etc) in and then lay down a really think layer of something, I use Builders Paper in multiple layers, and then I repeat those same steps roughly 12" from the the area I just prepped. After it has sat for a couple weeks, do a light till or dig and then seed with something you know is a heavy, dense grass, cover crop, flower etc.

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I seen areas paved over with concrete…and Bermuda grass come up in a crack in the concrete a year later.

Let us know if the cardboard works as good as pavement. :slight_smile:

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You have to till or dig down about 12" to remove the grass first. Also, you can put a 6" deep border of some.sort to help prevent the stolons from spreading under the soil. That said, while it is resilient, see above, it will not survive too long without the sunlight unless dormant.

You could also plant a heavy dose of a taller cover crop immediately after tilling, which will not only build up the soil, it will shade out the Bermuda grass. Because tilling is so detrimental to the soil biology, the cover crop will help rebuild it while doing the above.

-AO

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Is that from your personal experience?
And it worked?

Partly. I did the.paper part only along the edge or my garden where I needed to stack logs to be used in my raised Hügel beds it kept the grass from growing out.

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Our entire (small so cal) front yard was Bermuda grass. We dug it out by hand, first time I truly understood the expression “work your fingers to the bone”. After removal we covered the whole area with several layers of cardboard, planted native plants in small holes in the cardboard and heavily mulched on top. Every so often I scan for the start of new bermuda and dig it out but it’s few and far between and we’re several years in now.
Ps. First we tried covering it with plastic for several months, no luck with that method

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