Hello,

I am Square Foot Gardening for the first time this year, and up until 2 weeks ago I had beautiful, weed free boxes! (6 4x4 boxes)

For the past few weeks, a Cottonwood tree in the neighborhood has been shedding it's seeds, and it's blanketing my garden with the fluff, which are sprouting, resulting in a blanket of Cottonwood weeds. There are hundreds in each square foot.

I am not sure how to deal with this for the following reasons:
- the fluff falls often and is not solid enough to pick out of the beds
- hours of pulling weeds barely puts a dent in it... I just physically cannot pull all of them
- they are starting to get deep roots
- the weeding I have done is quickly negated by more falling seeds

Has anyone encountered this or been able to deal with it? The only solution I can think of is newspaper + mulch (which I have started doing) but half of my squares are small plants were this is not really possible, like carrots, beets, beans, onions, etc.

Is there any magic way to get rid of these horrid things? I feel helpless, and the Cottonwood fell like snow again today.