I don't know about sheep manure, but I believe the City of Toronto has a bylaw with a Weed Control Act and weed inspectors - maybe you should get them onto your neighbours!

good luck!

I should think that sheep manure and triple mix would do the opposite of reducing weeds, since both improve the soil and help growth. It sound like you need a good covering of mulch, which will prevent weed seeds from taking root while keeping moisture in the soil for those plants you want to grow.

I too have neighbors who basically neglect their yards. When I planted my garden three years ago I used a ton of mulch. Now I don't need to do any mulching, as I so over-planted that there's no space for weeds to take root.

I don't know if sheep manure effectively reduces weeds. The only thing I can think of is that manure compost as mulch does heat up enough ti kill off any germinating seeds. Having said that I wouldn't use it for that purpose. It is however, a great soil amendment. Just don't top dress your soil with this now that it's very hot out there. It can burn off your plants.

YOur choice of soil like black earth is okay. In fact I like this product from Loblaws and use it every spring to topdress my former garden. (working on a brand new garden now).

As for your weedy neighborhood. I agree with deb. You need to talk to your local municipality and have them come to inspect the area. They will need to notify the owners to control their weedy front yard. I cannot say if they can do the same for the backyard.

Weed control techniques:

Try installing an edger along the fenceline to prevent weeds (and other plants' roots) from invading your yard. As for seeds that fall into your land, well try to get the weeds while they are young. Dandelion, thistle have particularly long tap roots and are difficult to remove so best tackle them when they are young.

Cutting off their access to sunlight - this can be done by cutting of the weeds, topping them with a weedcloth or by wet newspapers and adding mulch or topsoil. (it doesn't prevent new weeds that sprout from seeds that land on top of the soil).

Herbicides - I don't advocate using chemicals but you might. Roundup is one such herbicide.

Digging them up - there are various tools used to pull the weeds from your yard.

Organic methods - use vinegar to spray on the weedsor boiling water

So there are many approaches. Hoep this helps.

Ianna

Salman, Hi , the good thing about sheep manure is that it doesn't contain weed seeds, something about their digestive systems kills them off but that will not help with weed seeds already there.
Look on the bright side, weeding is a big part of gardening and can be very satisfying LOL just think of them as someone who is annoying you and PULL....discard, M

I transferred to a new home and the backyard was largely untouched. Not a single shrub or perennial. There was a weedy grass lawn. So one of my first tasks was to redo the backyard - carefully removed the weeds one at a time, added topsoil and then reseeded them. One mistake we made was to buy topsoil from untested (although well known garden centre) and it turned out to be weedy. I am now once again pulling out weeds. It doesn't help that we are near a 'wild' park area and seeds such as thistle, dandelions are constantly appearing through out the yard. Fortunately, I'm very much up to tackling this tedious task. The lesson, use bagged topsoil. Make sure you have carefully inspected the soil before you make a purchase. Next time around, i will purchase topsoil well into summer - because if that topsoil layed exposed in teh garden centre during spring, it would have collected a lot of weed seeds at the surface. Or the alternative is to purchase them as Salman did - already bagged and weed free.

Ianna

Thanks for the replies everyone.

I had forgotten about the City of Toronto bylaw regarding weed control and weedy frontyards. I think I might contact the city to find out if they could possibly inspect a homeowner's weedy backyard. In my sub-division a number of houses have interlocking on their front (hence no "frontyard") and fairly weedy backyards.

Jannabeen: overplanting is a good idea... the only problem is I might run out of $$$ first!

Ianna: thanks for your weed control tips. I am not a fan of chemicals either (I have a 2 yo daughter) so I think I'll be trying the "wet newspaper" technique.

Mora: nothing like channeling negative thoughts into positive ones, eh LOL! :) I do like your idea!

Thanks everyone... have a great weekend. :)

Salman Ahmed