Pull. Pull it all! Every last bit of root has to come out. You'll be at this for a long time. It never ends.

Sorry.

start small. pull all the stuff you don't want and immediatly reseed or plant something you want to give the weeds/grass some competition and then stay on top of it by continuing to weed. Or instead try smothering out the grass with plastic or plywood or something. Once its been covered for a while the grass is sure to die.I sometimes use a shovel to turn the weeds and roots upside down(root side up). This sort of works.

I agree with Melvalena. Get down on your knees and pray (oops I mean prey!) Do one area every other day so you don't get sick and tired of plucking and pulling. But I admit it: with perseverance, it does work. Once one bed or area is done, throw down a good layer of mulch.

The black plastic technique works well if your intention is to kill EVERYTHING, weeds and all.

Dare I say "round up"?...it works if you are careful....no fumes, only kills what it touches and when it has dried, it's safe.
Linda C

He's trying not to kill other things in the area.
Round up won't even put a dent in our grass here. Turns it brown for a bit, slows it down..but doesn't kill it.

Hand pull/dig what you don't want, put down at least 4 or 5 layers of damp black & white newspaper on the areas you want to keep weed free, then top with an inch or two of mulch/compost. I use mushroom compost. Takes 3 or 4 years for the newspaper to decompose, and you can dig through it to plant. I put the paper down dry, then soak it with the hose before topping with compost. Works for me, and the few weeds that do manage to show up are easy to pull.
Judy

Malvena, I use round up in the middle of my perennial border, for stubborn weeds.
There are many ways to be sure you don't get it on plants you don't want to kill, one is to mask them with a sheet of cardboard, and another is known as "the hand of death". You put a rubber glove on your hand, then a cotton glove and saturate with round up and "shake hands" with the weed you want to kill.
If Round Up won't kill the grass, you are not mixing it to the proper strength.
Linda C

Yes you can do things to keep RU off of things you don't want to kill. But he's talking moss that would be hard to protect I think.

You don't know our grass. Its next to impossible to kill.
Honestly. It'd have to be to survive our summers. RU does not do the trick. It bounces right back.

Melvalena

I have sprayed weed killer (like round up) on weeds in moss. The moss bounces back after a short period.

In the high deserts roundup just tumbles off some stuff like tumbleweed. I got a pump up sprayer and put about a pint of dish soap and a pint of roundup in a two gallon sprayer and foamed the tumbleweed. That worked pritty good.

Thank you all for input.

Today I hand weeded for five hours straight.
I filled a 55 gallon bin!

There's probably hundreds of lady bugs and larvae amongst the tall weeds, so I had to hand pick.
They look like freddy kruegar's fingers with blueviolet flowers.

The other predominant weed is has tons of pale yellow seeds looks like tiny baby breath. They create patches of pale yellow on the lawn.

welcome to california :) where the weeds weigh more than the people ;)

I'm in the same position myself- trying to reclaim a STUNNING outcropping of silver cushion and club mosses from the grass and years of neglect- I get about a square foot done at a time, and then go do something a bit more active to give my back a break...

but it'll be so worth it when we're done!

We bought a house and started gardening at the worst weed time in SoCA (February). While no garden vegetables were yet available, we've been happily eating most of the weeds. Get a good book on edible wild plants and you'll discover that there's a lot less weeds in you garden than you've thought.

Many weeds are from lack of proper soil nutrients

Some weeds can be killed by choking out with just planting extra grass

just another method

I use NO Pest weed and grass killer mixed 50/50 and a small paint brush. It is absorbed thru the leaves and transfered to the roots. You don't have to soak the ground, just the leaves. It should be completely dead in about a week. And the Brush lets you be selective

I used Round up for poison ivy and shrub killer Spray, $7.00, on grass growing through a brick path in the shade, and here it is 3 weeks later, the grass and HORSETAIL WEED are all dead, but the moss is still nice and green. Try it in a small area.