Weed Control

Vegetables and
Annual Flowers

Class 1: Gardening Basics
Class 2: Garden Planning & Design
Class 3: Indoor Seed Starting
Class 4: Planting & Transplanting
Class 5: Maintaining a Healthy Garden
Class 6: Troubleshooting

Control weeds by covering unused beds with mulch until you're ready to plant.

There's nothing more discouraging then heading out to the garden and seeing it overrun with weeds. If it seems like they appear almost overnight, it's true!

Mother nature doesn't like to see her soil left bare and unprotected. Bare soil is subject to erosion, overheating, and compaction, all of which are detrimental to soil life. So, if you don't protect your soil, she will! And she'll do it by covering it with "weeds."

What we call weeds are simply opportunistic plants that have the ability to quickly colonize any bare patch of soil. What's a gardener to do? While there will always be some weeding to do, there are lots of ways to minimize the amount of "required weeding."

A Ten-Step Plan for Weed Control

Mulch, mulch, mulch! A thick layer of mulch will deprive weed seedlings of light. If you lay several sheets of newspapers down first, you can apply a thinner layer of mulch on top. (Remember the caution, however, of waiting until soil has warmed up before applying mulch.)
Mulch! (Just in case you didn't hear the first time....)
Start weed control early in the season, and don't let any weeds set flowers and go to seed.
Protect unplanted beds by covering them with straw or even tarps, so the weeds don't get the upper hand before you've even planted.
Grow a weed-smothering cover crop such as buckwheat in areas of the garden you don't plan to use this season. Don't let it go to seed, however, or you'll have a new weed to contend with!
Grow a winter cover crop. The crop will protect the soil in early spring, when it's still too wet to work. Cover crops such as winter rye (not the same thing as ryegrass!) are planted in fall. They'll grow until the cold weather hits. The crop is then tilled under in the spring, which adds valuable organic matter to the soil.
Interplant ground-hugging, weed-smothering crops like pumpkins with tall, non-shading, weed-susceptible crops like corn.
If you are creating a new garden, remove the sod before tilling. But don't discard it! It is a valuable resource. Instead, pile it in an out-of-the-way place. By the end of the summer the sod will have composted, yielding rich topsoil.
Don't overtill. Tilling or otherwise cultivating the soil brings weed seeds to the surface where they can germinate. Also, it chops up the roots of perennial weeds like dandelions into pieces, each of which can sprout. If you must cultivate, do so to a depth of only an inch or two.
Try to weed a little bit every day. That way, you won't have to face every gardener's nightmare -- the overwhelming task of weeding the entire garden. Weed when the soil is moist, so it's easier to pull out the plants, roots and all.

Class 5, Page 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Children can teach us a lot about tolerance. While parents are out in the lawn, feverishly weeding out dandelions, children are making dandelion necklaces and marveling as they watch the fluffy seeds float away when they blow on them.

Most people consider lambsquarters a weed, but others enjoy it as a savory, nutritious green to add to soups and quiche.

Thistles are a particularly difficult weed to control. They have far-ranging root systems, and new plants can sprout from root fragments. If you continue to pull new plants as they emerge, however, you will eventually deplete the food reserves in the roots.