Would it be a major pain to rake it to the side and put down a thick layer of newspaper? I get mine for free from various city recycling collection points. You could rake the straw back into place.

That's the quickest and most effective organic thing I can think of. The newspaper will compost into your soil by the end of the season. The newsprint will blot out the sun for months.

Cardboard works well too.

whatever grass straw comes from

Straw isn't a grass. Hay is grass. Are you sure it isn't hay? Straw is the stems of grain crops - wheat, oats, and barley. It is brown, hollow, flat stems. So what may sprout of it is one of those 3 and then only if it was mowed and baled after a really poor harvesting was done.

If it does contain some seed they usually sprout only in small scattered patches, they don't look like "grass", and they usually pull up quite easily.

So I am at a loss as to what may be sprouting in your garden if it is straw that you used unless it is some sort of grass that was in the garden before the straw.

Whatever it is you are right that covering it with a thicker layer is the easiest solution - 6-8" is the usual minimum recommendation. Otherwise you can water the garden well and then the weeds are easier to pull. If you have a tiller you can also just till it all in in the paths.

Dave

It's not unusual at all for older combines to leave grain that is later picked up by the baler collecting the straw. If you have weird weather in the spring, it's also not unusual for a crop to sprout at different times, leaving the farmer with half a crop in the bin and half left in the field, no matter when he chooses to harvest or how new and efficient his equipment. Sometimes grain is left in the straw and there's nothing you can do about it.

The good news is that if it is wheat, oats or barley, it's an annual crop - not a perennial weed that's going to haunt your dreams for years to come. All you have to do is chop it off low down with some hedge trimmers (or something similar). It won't grow back. Just don't let it go to seed.

I really, really doubt it's grass. You said when you try to weed it, it's brittle and breaks easily. That sounds like young grain plants to me. You're probably thinking it's grass because all of the grains Dave mentioned do indeed look like grass when they're young. I personally wouldn't add more of the same straw because you're just adding more seeds. Just pull or chop.

Thanks for the responses. Wish I had put down newspaper -- will do that next year.

Re: what the "grass" is -- I'm sure you guys are right, grass wasn't the right word, I should have said whatever "plant" straw comes from. This is definitely straw and not hay -- as I mentioned in the other thread, I ride horses and use both, so I know what they are, though apparently not where straw comes from. :) This stuff is growing throughout the entire vegetable garden and nowhere else, and I've since noticed seed pods mixed in with the straw. It also sprouted all in one lovely flush after the first pouring rain we had after I put the straw down. I just did a google image search and both the plant and the seed pod look like the pictures of oats.

I'm glad to hear that getting rid of it once will be enough -- that makes sense. Will be working on that this weekend.

I get the same thing happen. i weed whack or mow on low( with the straw down), let the sun cook the ground for a day and put another bales worth of straw down. Your always going to get that, the straw traps seeds of all types until a good rain and then its the perfect growing space. Its just something i do every month or two. Good luck.

Great advice from previous comments. All true facts. Same thing happened to me. At first, I was put off by it but then I decided it was a good cover crop. By letting it grow awhile, the roots aerate and add elements to the soil. For the most part, I cut it back with a weed wacker after about 2 months and left the roots to enrich the soil. The plants I pulled, I noted that by letting it mature a bit, the roots came out with the plant better. Best thing I learned today was that it's an annual and that it's not going to do the same thing next yr. Mine is loaded with seeds still. That's was my concern about pulling and disrupting the soil. That the unsprouted seeds would now fall into the soil and I'd have a new crop come in.

Straw that is sold commercially is normally dry plants of wheat, rye, barley, oats. They are annual grasses ( family Poaceae). Rarely will you get clean threshed straw as harvesters are still not perfect. Field conditions can also result in lots of seeds left behind by the harvester (combine). Easier to control as sprouts. disturb them as they are spouting and they die easily. Mature plants are more difficult, but they do not regenerate when cut as the seed heads develop.