Weeds. The enemy of gardeners the world around! They
are responsible for choking the life from vegetable and flower gardens,
while stealing life-giving nutrients away from our plants. Weeds are
also the reason many gardeners throw their hands up by mid-summer and
call it a year.
It simply doesn't have to be
that way. In fact, some of the most time-consuming chores we have been
led to believe help with gardening and weeds - are actually the main
culprit to creating more! Simply by eliminating those weed promoting
practices, and replacing with a few time and labor saving methods - you
can all but eliminate the issue of weeds in your garden.
We spend no more than 10 minutes a day handling all of the chores in
our garden - including weeding - and that's not a misprint! The first
step is realizing that eliminating weeds in a garden is a process and
not a one time thing. But don't let that scare you - the process is
simple and leads to a productive and beautiful garden in a fraction of
the time.
Here are six ways we keep our garden weed free - and fun to be and work in!
TIP 1: Eliminate Bare Soil From Your Garden And Beds
Bare soil is at the root of most weed problems. Bare soil is an open
invitation for blowing weed seeds to become established. By using
mulches and protecting the soil, you can cut the potential for future
weeds dramatically! We use a combination of mulches in our garden space
to keep it covered. Straw and shredded leaf mulch in the walking rows,
and a 2 to 3 inch mulching of compost right around our plants.
Just remember - open space is an open invitation for weeds and soil erosion
TIP 2: Resist the Urge to Dig and Till Your Soil:
This is the biggest time-saving AND weed saving tip we can give. Stop
tilling the garden! In the time it takes a person to till between the
rows of a garden the same size as ours, we have finished our 10 minute
gardening work day, grilled out for dinner and are sitting on the patio
enjoying a cool beverage! And while working that extra time tilling -
that person also just replanted tens of thousands of weed seeds that
will germinate in the coming weeks.
Tilling
simply takes all of the weed seeds that are laying on the surface,
where they may never germinate, and plants them into the soil. Tilling
over time also can destroy your soil's structure, but when it comes to
weeds - it's a prime reason gardeners have to spend so much time trying
to eliminate them. It takes time, gas, and is a never-ending chore.
Instead - heavily mulch your rows with grass clippings, straw, or
shredded leaves - they keep weeds to a minimum and help add vital
nutrients to the soil as they break down.
We believe in this one so much we actually have an entire post dedicated to it: Why Not To Use A Rototiller.
TIP 3: Don't Over Hoe Your Row
Here's another long time garden chore that used to take hours in the
garden - and should take only minutes. Using a hoe to loosen the surface
soil around the base and root zone of your plant is a great weekly
practice. It provides air to the plant's base and allows nutrients and
water to more easily reach the root structure. But that is the extent of
what is needed - just a 3 to 5" light hoeing of the perimeter soil
around the base of each plant. Leave all of the other space in your
planting rows alone and simply mulch it! Over-hoeing creates the same
issue as tilling - planting above ground weeds seeds back into the
earth. All you need is a light hoeing immediately around the plants - it
saves tons of time and labor, and eliminates replanting weed seeds.
TIP 4 : Start Practicing The Art Of Cover Crops:
Start cover cropping this fall. Cover crops really help eliminate weeds
over time by protecting your bare soil over the late fall, winter and
early spring months. They have obvious benefits to helping your soils
vitality, but they also help to form a barrier for blowing seeds to
enter and lay in wait. After a season or two of cover crops - you will
be amazed how little weeds actually even appear in your garden. You can
find more about cover crops here : Cover Crops In Your Garden.
Tip 5 : Keeping The Weeds Out Of Walking Rows:
Keeping weeds out of the walking rows between your plants is just as
important to the health of your garden as it is the look. The answer -
Mulch - Mulch and more Mulch! We use whatever we have on hand. Straw and
shredded leaves work great to create a thick 3 to 5" covering between
our planting rows. From time to time a few weeds will start to pop up -
and we simply pull them on our daily trips through the garden. If they
become thicker - we simply take the weed eater through the garden and
mow them down to the grown and reapply a few more inches of mulch. It
immediately looks great again and stays that way for weeks. It's so much
quicker and better than tilling up that soil between your rows!
TIP 6: Practice The 10 Minute-A-Day Philosophy
I think there are a lot of skeptics when we say we spend only 5 to 10
minutes a day in the garden for maintenance. However, that is one of the
biggest secrets to maintaining a weed free garden - actually spending
that time in the garden each day! This may sound a bit crazy, but 10
minutes of daily work is not the same as spending 70 minutes once a week
in the garden.
In fact, there is a huge
difference between the two. If you let the garden go for more than a day
or two - weeds and the problems they bring multiply and magnify. Roots
get deeper, spread and multiply, and suddenly you feel overwhelmed. What
takes 10 minutes one day can suddenly take 4 to 8 hours when it has
been neglected for a week or two. And guess what? It's not fun anymore
at that point.
We head into the garden
every day and walk the rows. If we see a weed around a plant, we pull it
as we go. Usually, once a week we will spend the time hoeing the area
only around the plants - once again - the process just takes 10 minutes
to do the entire garden. Another day, we spend the time putting down
some extra compost mulch around the plants or straw or shredded leaves
in the paths. That's it.
So there you have
it - how we keep our weeds and workload to a minimum. And remember the
reason most of us garden in the first place - to eat healthier and get a
little exercise. This is a perfect 10 minute workout every day!
Happy Gardening! - Jim and Mary
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