Kitchen Gardeners International: Garden Q& A: Techniques for minimizing weeding

Q I hate weeding! What can I do from the start to minimize the time I have to spend on this gardening chore?

A Up-front weed prevention will really cut down on weeding headaches in years to come. Try the following techniques:

Remove roots. Dig up and discard roots of perennial weeds and grass when you prepare soil.

Consider smothering. Instead of digging up soil, consider making a deep layer of mulch to smother weeds. This technique works best on seedling perennial weeds as well as annuals, but you”ll need to take tougher steps to control such thugs as thistles and tough grasses.

Mulch, mulch, mulch. Covering the soil surface discourages weed seeds from sprouting. Mulch established crops with up to 8”/20.3 cm of coarse mulch, such as weed-free straw. When using finer mulches, such as grass clippings, use less, about 2”/5 cm. Finer mulches can pack down too much, which holds in soil moisture, but also causes rainfall to run off without soaking in. Weed seedlings that sprout beneath deep mulch will die without emerging; if a few weeds do poke through shallow mulch, they’ll be easy to hand pull.

Pick the flowers. Even if you don’t have time to pull up weeds, pull off and dispose of their flowers before they form seeds. Pull off seedheads that you see as well. Toss flowers and seedheads in the trash, not on the compost pile. This prevents seedlings in years to come.

Reprinted from The Veggie Gardener's Answer Book
Copyright 2008 by Barbara W. Ellis, with permission from Storey Publishing.

Photo credit: Er.We.

Posted by KGI on July 14, 2009 10:53 AM to Kitchen Gardeners International
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