If you are a new gardener or an experienced one, you’re aware of the great battle of the grass and garden weeds vs. you. The battle is real and here is how we’re dealing with it.
The Battle of the Garden Weeds
We are enlarging and reclaiming some of our garden, which we haven’t used in a couple of years. I know we should have planted it in buckwheat, and we did some of it, but with being gone from the farm most of a year and a half, we just had to prioritize. The garden plot was dropped. Now, the war is on!
You know from earlier posts we’ve mulched a part of the garden with 2-3″ of yard materials: leaves, grass, pine straw. This section is doing really well. However, the rest of the garden (actually the majority of it) is our battlefield.
The Battle of the Garden Weeds
We have five main weed types that we are pursuing eradication of:
- morning glory
- thistle (of some kind)
- balloon plant (also called Love Puff – ain’t nothing to love about it)
- carpetweed
- red sorrel
Since we use organic farming practices, my current method of weeding is my two hands and a hoe. My husband put a nice sharp edge on all three edges of my hoe. I read about sharpening the three edges in an article by an Amish farmer.
I must say, with a hand slap to the forehead, “I should have thought of that!” You would not believe the “edge” it gives you in hoeing (pun intended) when the sides of your hoe are sharpened too. This fall/winter I will put the chickens into the garden to bat clean-up and this will help with the eradication and fertilization.
Using Cover Crops
Future Plans
Ha, ha,ha! ?
Unfortunately I do not have chickens. I would love to have some,but we live in suburbs and our city has ordinance against them. Plus, I haven’t convinced my husband yet. 🙁
haha, I’ve been there. Fortunately for me my hubby doesn’t always pay close attention when I talk and often replies with ‘uh huh’ . It was then that I wiggled in the chicken question. Suffice to say, he now pays better attention- 🙂
You might enjoy reading an article on An Oregon Cottage website. She had horrible weeds and found a great, chemical-free way to deal with them. In mid-to late winter she places black plastic over each planting bed (she saves and reuses for multiple years). Weights it down with rocks, branches, boards, anything heavy enough. Then closer to planting time she removes it and just rakes away the dead weed debris, puts a layer of compost and plants. I may have missed something, so you may want to read her whole article. I hope this is helpful.
Thank you so much, I will certainly look at her website. Plastic covers do a great job at weed control as well as cardboard. Cover crops to help add nutrients to the soil that the garden depletes, you just need to remember to get to them before they go to seed. But if you have chickens you rotate, they normally do a good job at helping you with that.