Great Vegetable Gardening Tips & Techniques » Dealing With Weeds
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Dealing with Weeds in the Vegetable Garden
After feeding and watering, weed control is the most important element in creating a successful vegetable garden. Weeds are “plants out of place” and must be eliminated.
Herbicides are not the best solution, and should not be used for weed control.
During initial preparation of your ground all weeds, both annual and perennial, must be removed. This means that all perennial plants’ rhizomes and runners must be dug out (show graphic).
Regarding annual weeds, an important gardening axiom to remember is “one year’s weeds equal seven years’ seeds.” Your garden area probably has MANY years’ growth of weed seeds in it, so don’t expect to eliminate all the SEEDS the first time you remove a growth of WEEDS.
One of our weeding secret weapons lets us NEVER weed on our hands and knees, and you won’t either when you learn how and when to use two simple and inexpensive garden tools – the rake and the 2-way hoe (also known as a Hula Hoe, scuffle hoe, or stirrup hoe).
After making and planting your soil-beds remove the weeds as soon as they appear – even before they are 1/2″ tall! Eliminating ALL weeds, even to the extent of tearing down the ridges and building them up again, is often necessary to get the upper hand.
Pull down the ridges with the 2-way hoe, and re-build them again with the rake. Then using the 2-way hoe again, cut the weeds in the center of the bed between the two rows of plants. By doing it this way a 30 foot bed can be thoroughly weeded in 5 minutes.
Be prepared to do it again within 2 to 3 weeks, since “seven years’ weed seeds” means most garden soils harbor thousands of dormant seeds, just waiting for these ideal growing conditions.
And remember to do this is when the weeds are tiny! If you wait even two more weeks, removing the weeds may take many times longer, and be less effective besides.
The aisles will also need weeding, but if they are treated the same as the beds, with weeds eliminated as soon as they emerge, very quickly the aisles will be clear also. And since no water or food is applied to the aisles the weeds will grow slowly, if at all.
Are Herbicides ever a viable solution?
All weeds must be eliminated if you are to have a weed-free garden. However, some people achieve less than that ideal by lazy weeding and then want to use herbicides to do the job.
Herbicides such as Roundup may be part of a viable solution in extreme situations, but they bring their own set of problems, including:
1) Initial cost.
2) Must be applied when weeds are active and growing, wasting valuable growing time in the early spring.
3) Almost never do the job completely,
4) May kill valuable vegetable or other plants, and
5) Many people fear the residues will harm those who eat the crops.
Alternative solution to all that weeding
Do you still just HATE to weed? Should you just put down black plastic, or cover the soil with mulch?
Plastic that covers the soil causes real difficulty in feeding and watering. The plant roots quickly fill the entire bed area underground and watering or trying to fertilize through a small hole at the stem does not work! The stem area gets too much of both and the other 90% of the area gets none.
The problems caused by mulch are different but just as real. Fertilizers do not get dissolved and into the soil as well, mulch can harbor bugs and diseases, and it is a mess to remove when you need to dig or till the soil for the next crop.
One thing you SHOULD consider is the size of your garden. A well-tended Mittleider garden will produce several times more than the same size traditional garden.
Therefore, consider starting with a smaller garden space - perhaps 1/3rd or even 1/4th the size you were planning on. You’ve automatically eliminated 67-75% of the weeding!
Even beyond the weeding issue, however, think of what you would do with 60 heads of lettuce or 60 cabbages if you planted a full bed of those crops that mature all at once. Plan ahead and plant only what you know your family can eat, sell, or give away.
The greatest reward for your time and effort will be achieved by growing high-value crops like tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, eggplant, pole beans, squash and melons. If you grow them vertically they take less space, produce all season long instead of just one time, and are loved by most everyone (yes eggplant is LOVED by those who know how to cook and use it).
Any size Mittleider garden beats traditional methods 5 to 1
Whatever size garden you choose, do the best job you can, with the tools you have, to eliminate all the rhizomes and runners before measuring, staking, and building your beds. Thereafter, keeping your aisles dry and weeding both beds and aisles regularly with the 2-way hoe as soon as weeds show their faces, will keep them in check, and eventually kill them off completely.
And finally, consider that by starting with healthy, strong seedlings your vegetables will have a big head start on the weeds, and by planting close together in the beds they will produce almost total shade in the bed very quickly, so the weeds will have no sunlight by which they can grow. This assures that you have little problem with weeds later in the season.
Meanwhile traditional gardening methods plant farther apart, thus leaving ample sunlight for weeds to prosper. And the problem is made much worse if watering is done by sprinkling or flooding! Both methods water the aisles, and flood irrigating often also deposits new weed seeds everywhere, to grow in the newly watered soil.
To Review - The simple keys to a weed-free garden
1) Remove EVERYTHING from your garden space as you prepare it – especially the perennial weeds with their rhizomes and runners.
2) Weed as soon as the first weeds appear, and do it thoroughly – with the 2-way hoe!
3) Pull down your ridges and rake them back up again. It only takes 5 minutes per bed, and eliminates most of the weeds as they first germinate.
4) Use the 2-way hoe down the center of the bed between your plants to eliminate weeds in that area. If you’re using the Automated Watering System, unscrew and lift the PVC pipe out of the bed first.
5) If you’re using T-Frames for climbing plants, install them on one side of the bed in the ridge, leaving the planting area open for weeding, watering, and feeding.
6) Proper and timely weeding eliminates the need for using herbicides, and reduces pest and disease infestations as well.
Visit the Learn section of the website and click on the Weeding chapter. This is a quick read, but VERY important for you to understand and implement on a regular basis. Each of the Mittleider gardening books also has a chapter on proper and timely weeding. I recommend them highly.