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Removing Oxalis from the Garden

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Question

I have very abundant Oxalis in my garden beds. Our neighbors have been spraying weed killer every now and again to keep it at bay. They haven't planted the beds and stopped the weed killer when we told them we wanted to plant the beds. (I want to plant vegetables and flowers including, bulbs, and sweet peas along the fence). Any thoughts of how to get rid of Oxalis? The two beds are 15 x 5 ft. -- Nalani in San Francisco
Nalani
San Francisco

Answer

You should attempt to dig as much of the Oxalis out as possible. Mature plants have many small bulblets at the base. Sifting the soil after you have dug what you can will help capture any loose bulblets. Cover your beds with the lasagna method of mulching. First wet newspaper, then cardboard, then compost or forest mulch, then more newspaper, planting mix, cardboard, then compost. You can plant directly into your lasagna layers. Any Oxalis trying to resprout will be depressed by the mulch layers.

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