We all want weed-free gardens, right? Why not – weeds litter up our gardens, play host to destructive insects, and compete with our veggies for water and nutrients. Weed seeds blow in from nearby fields, get slung in by “weedeaters”, and get “deposited” in your garden by birds – but did you know that right now, every cubic foot of typical garden soil contains around 4000 weed seeds? They are there just waiting for the right conditions to germinate and ruin your day. Every time you till your garden or deep dig, you bring hundreds of these waiting seeds up to the surface where the sunlight will enable them to germinate. Sure, I love to till my garden, incorporating some nice compost, and then step back and see that pretty fluffy dirt (that cats love so much too!), but each time I do I get a plethora of weeds popping up. If I plant right away, I play heck later trying to pull out the baby weeds without taking the baby carrots along with. Virtually ANY weed killer is horrible to get anywhere near your garden – DON’T DO IT – and who wants poison in their food anyhow? So, what’s to be done? Read on and let me share with you a few of my hard-won strategies that have paid off in “nearly” weed free gardening.
First, start practicing “no-till gardening.” Every time you till the soil you not only bring weed seeds to the surface, but also disrupt the soil biotica (the thing you are trying to build), and kill valuable earthworms. You also burn up a lot of the organic material you’ve worked hard to put into the soil. I certainly do fork my carrot bed to loosen up the soil, because I love those nice straight long carrots, but for the rest of the garden I just pile on the compost and mulch let the worms do the tilling. They do a wonderful job of distributing the organic material throughout the soil, encourage beneficial microorganisms and also leave those precious worm castings behind.
Second, mulch your plants heavily. Ground up leaves, compost, forest humus, or even cardboard and newspapers work. These mulches conserve moisture, keep your plants’ roots cool, and feed and encourage worms to come near the surface and do their jobs. But more important, mulch smothers weed seedlings and prevents most others from finding soil and thus germinating.
Third, if you do decide to till your garden, you can kill off 90% of the weeds before you put in your vegetable seeds or starts by following this procedure: After cleaning up your garden and tilling, water overhead with a sprinkler, or even by hand, for a few minutes every day to keep the top of the soil evenly moist. When the seeds inevitably pop up (in a week or two), wait until they are about ½ to 1 inch high, then, early in the day spray them all over with straight white vinegar (do not dilute) and a good squirt of Ivory Dish Soap or Castille soap. The sun will do the rest – those weeds, and their seeds will just “burn up.” You may want to go back and hit anything that remains a few days later. Next, water really well, rake lightly, and plant your garden. You have just rid yourself of the vast majority of your weed problems. One word of caution is that the vinegar will rot out any metal or brass parts on your sprayer including the nozzle and springs. Use an all plastic sprayer like the house brand at ACE Hardware, and make sure to rinse it thoroughly, including spraying fresh water through the spray handle, when you are done. Mine has lasted at least 5 or 6 years. I should confess that, while vinegar works on almost all weeds, like grass, spurge, purslane, etc., it will not kill Nutgrass. This, you will have to dig up by hand making sure to get all the runner roots. My mentor used to say “Only way to be sure is by digging it up, burning, it and throwing the ashes in the ocean – honest promise!!”
Lastly, when you do have to weed, catch the weeds young and be surgical about it. Try to get just the weeds without disturbing the roots of your veggies. I use a Hula Hoe for the broad strokes, but when I get near a vegetable plant or want to get between seedlings, I use a very small-headed long-handled hoe (I want to do my weeding standing up – thank you!). like a Swoe or a Circle Hoe. These tools are small and very precise, letting you get just the weeds without disturbing your crop. I make my own now, but these tools can be purchased online or at good garden centers.
Follow these steps and you will win the battle against weeds handily and make your gardening so much simpler and more enjoyable.
Until next time… Happy Organic Gardening!!
PS
If you have missed any of my Organic Gardening How To’s, they are all archived and available on this site – mauimistgardens.com.
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