Controlling Weeds in Your Garden

Weeds are a huge problem for many gardeners. They drown out sunlight and air from your plants as well as absorb water and precious nutrients that your plants need. The battle against weeds will never end, but there are some simple weed control measures you can take.

The best way to prevent compulsive weed growth is to start with a weed free garden. Before planting, till all the soil where you want to plant. Allow the soil to dry out for a few days and then go back and pull all the weeds from the garden bed. This may be done 2-3 times to ensure you removed all the weeds. You will want to toss the weeds far away as the seeds may make their way back to the garden. If you desire you can bag them and throw them out or you could start a little fire to burn the refuse. You will not want to place weeds from your garden into your compost pile as the seeds may survive the composting process and still be viable when you place the compost into your garden. These weed seeds will grow in time and begin the process all over again.

Many weeds are creepers, which mean they spread by forming shoots above ground as well as under ground. This is one reason weeds are so difficult to control. If any part of the root system is left in the ground, the roots will continue to grow and send up new shoots. It is very important to create a weed proof border around your garden for this reason. There are many products on the market to obtain this goal. The most common is simple landscape edging. The hard plastic material is dug down into the ground about 4 inches, and has about 2 inches of plastic above ground. This will make it more difficult for the weeds to enter the garden. The roots will hit the plastic and have to go much deeper to get through. The above ground shoots will need to get over the plastic. This is not a "no weed" guarantee and you will need to keep an eye on the edging and pull any weeds that are getting close to climbing over.