HOW TO BEAT WEEDS
Well, here we are, still in the throes of the “Dog Days of Summer”......
As I’ve told my friends from the North, your bitter winters may cause you cabin fever, but cabin fever afflicts us in the South when the grueling high temperatures of summer keep us indoors, when venturing outside between 9:00 am and 9:00 pm can actually put your health at risk.
As a devoted gardener who loves the outdoors, this is very difficult for me. When weather and season permit, I spend all the time I can outside, making Hypertufa pieces, tending the garden, or caring for plants and flowerbeds.
That’s what I love - tending the garden - but just now I must admit mine is pretty sad. Naturally the weeds are thriving, but not much else is. The Marigolds and Basil are doing fine. The rest has succumbed to the heat and drought we had in Texas this year.
Yes, I just about let my garden all go, discouraged by the heat, drought, grasshoppers and giant weeds. But then something happened. In the comfort of my air conditioning, Mother Nature put me in a gardening mood! I went through all my seeds and selected some to get started for the fall season. I planted seeds of Tomatoes, Bell Peppers, Yellow Squash, Cucumbers and Green Beans. They are all ready, growing in their tiny starter trays and begging to be moved. By the way, fall is probably the best season in Texas for planting a garden.
So, today I found myself in the garden, putting down black plastic to kill the weeds, collecting grass clippings to spread over the one area where I actually had pulled weeds, and working in some compost. All of this I did in preparation and hope for the approaching cooler season.
Ah, a gardener always looks forward to the next planting season, and I’m thinking this one will surely have fewer bugs, shorter days and a decent harvest. I am further motivated by the need to prove to my brother that I can actually grow more than one squash and one cucumber in a season. I don’t think I have convinced him I know how to grow a veggie garden. I’ll let you know how my fall garden turns out!
So, for those of you who are in that hopeful transition between gardening seasons, I offer this old article I found squirreled away named “How to Beat the Weeds”. Maybe it will help you when the little buggers start popping up!
HOW TO BEAT WEEDS
By Cheryl Long Organic Gardener; March/April, 2000 It happens even to expert Gardeners. We spend a warm spring afternoon eagerly planting our first seeds of the season, only to find 3 weeks later that an explosion of weeds has swallowed up the infant seedlings. Well… you can reduce your weeding chores dramatically if you launch your control efforts before you start planting seeds. Here are the basic steps: 1. Cultivate the beds or seed rows about 2 weeks before planting your garden. Then water them if the soil is dry. Cultivation kills weeds and loosens the soil so crops can grow well, but it also brings more weed seeds to the surface, where they sprout. (Many weed seeds are “smart” and go dormant when buried; they sprout when they are brought near enough to the surface to survive. Sometimes it takes several years of diligence to eliminate this “seed bank” from your garden (ugh...) 2. Hoe the bed shallowly immediately before you plant your crops. Cultivate just deeply enough to kill the newly sprouted weed seedlings without stirring up any buried weed seeds. The best hoes for this and other weeding chores are diamond, stirrup, or collinear types, with thin blades angled so you can slice just under the soil surface. Plant your seeds. 3. Spread a 1-inch layer of weed-smothering fresh grass clippings on all the bare soil in your garden except that directly over your newly planted seeds. When all areas are covered, add a second layer. The more you mulch, the less you have to weed or water. Grass clippings are superb as mulch because they look great and are as rich in nutrients as most composts. Best of all, you can usually get as many as you need from your neighbors-for free. Shredded leaves also work well. 4. Hoe or pull any weeds that come up through your mulch during the growing season. By removing them before they set seeds, you will reduce your weed problems for years to come. At the end of the growing season, add another couple inches of grass or leaves to the entire garden, and you probably won’t even need to cultivate next spring, just pull back the mulch and tuck in your seeds. |
Well, now you have it! I wish I had run across this article last spring!
Thank you for visiting, and please come again. Peggy Wells
PS: I get so behind on my tips that I'm thinking of calling this "Tip of the Quarter" Ha!
If you have any Tips you wish to share, please Contact Us - we'll add a new page!