Morning Glories Conquer TN Garden: Surrender is Imminent

Hey tomato lovers,

I gotta ask for some advice here.

I've been picking delicious tomatoes for a month or so now (of course, this
is Upper East Tennessee) but I have one hecklacious WEED problem which
threatens to overwhelm the whole operation.

This year I was sure I would be able to defeat the weeds because I had TWO
city dump-trucks full of leaf mulch dumped behind our house last autumn, and
my and my husband and the boys worked hard to shred them all up and layer
them with stuff to make them start to compost quicker (alfalfa meal and
suchlike) and then all this year we've been mulching all our garden beds
HEAVILY with this wonderful leafmulch.

Well, it has resulted in moist dark worm-rich soil formation all right, BUT
it has not suppressed the weeds in the least.  For the first part of the
summer we just kept pulling weeds and adding more mulch in big double
handfuls wherever we thought it might be getting thin.  Pull, mulch, pull,
mulch, and always the same kind of weeds:  those lovely *&%*&^% morning
glories.

We kept it up until the tomato plants were so big they "filled" the planting
beds, and we couldn't even get close enough to pull or mulch anymore, if you
know what I mean.  The boards which form the sides of the planting beds were
completely covered with tomato branches and leaves.

But then the lovely &*^&&^$^ morning glories, taking advantage of an unusual
week of rain here (unusual for the end of July/beginning of August) got
re-established and have grown ALL OVER my tomatoes.  Also all over the
potatoes, my blueberry bushes, my little baby apple tree, and everything
else.  And despite the fact that I'd tried to eradicate them along my fence
line with Round-Up and Finale and similar herbicides, they grew in so thick,
covering the fence with their lovely &^%$%$&^% white, blue, and purple
flowers, that the fence is sagging.

So, OK:  I tried hand-pulling. I tried heavy mulching. I tried herbiciding
along the perimeter.  And I lost.  Total defeat.  Except they sure are
purty.

What the heck could I do??

Eager to learn,

Julianne
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