I’m fascinated with the weeds in my backyard.  The neighbors say that before we came, the weeds were fence high.  Their roots are like a foot long, and as wide or wider than my thumb!  I really wanted an organic garden back there, so instead of weed killer, we covered most of the yard with black plastic, stones, and some mulch to weigh it down and smother the weeds.  You can see the plastic in the background here: 

We left it for about 6 weeks, and when we took it off, we saw it had worked pretty well.  

 Next, we had a bunch of family over (Thanks family!!!) to help us till it all up, and loosen the soil to throw grass seed.

The hard work kind of paid off.  We have some grass- though not as much as I’d hoped.  Looks like it will take a couple more years to really get things going.