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Controlling Weeds
- The following suggestions will help you control weeds in your garden. You will have fewer and fewer weeds each year that you follow these tips. Remember, weeds are just plants in the wrong place, and what is a weed in one area is a wanted plant in another, and many 'weeds' are infact edible for humans, good for wildlife, or pretty.
- Get rid of weeds BEFORE they go to seed.
- Mulching. Mulching provides two benefits. First, organic mulch like straw, grass clippings, or shredded bark, provides nutrients to your soil. Second, mulch blocks light from reaching weeds, effectively killing them. Any weeds that do survive will be easy to pull. For additional protection from weeds, layer newspaper, kraft paper, or cardboard under your mulch.
- Hoeing. Use a sharp hoe in your garden. Cutting the stems from the roots below the soil surface kills annual weeds. Oscillating or swan neck hoes work best for this job.
- Cooking weeds. If timing allows, cover your garden bed with clear plastic for six weeks after raking or hoeing out as many weeds as possible first. (Be sure to bury or otherwise weigh down the edges.) This effectively cooks and kills any remaining weeds.
- hand pull grassy weeds when they are small, before the root systems get too well established.
- To kill weeds in your driveway or sidewalk, boil a half gallon of water and add 1/4 cup of salt and 1/2 cup plus two tablespoons of white vinegar. Pour on the weeds while the water is still hot.(although boiling so much water uses a lot of energy!)
- Boiling water, or straight white vinegar, will kill many weeds.
- Weeds, once removed, can be composted. Most can be put straight onto your pile, but if you have perennial roots, these can continue to grow in a cold heap, and weed seeds can remain dormant in your compost, and germinate when you use it. See the 'Composting Weeds' page for dealing with this problem.(live link inserted when I've learned how to do it!!! John)
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