Recent rains have certainly greened up our parched land but, wow, here come the weeds!
Gardeners have choices of using herbicides to control weeds or take the organic approach. Gardeners wanting to avoid the use of chemical herbicides must be merciless in a weed control regime if they are to stay on top of these unwelcome and prolific plants.
Weeds left untended create competition for nutrients and water needed by the crop plant. Often weeds are more aggressive and can quickly crowd out the crop plants.
Never allow weeds to grow to maturation, flower and set seed because they have astounding reproduction rates. For example, one mature grass weed, like Foxtail, or one Amaranthus (pigweed) can set thousands of seeds per plant. If each of those seeds germinate and set seed, in a short period of time there is the potential for hundreds of thousands of weed seeds in a garden. Seeds of weedy species are tiny and are easily airborne. Weed seeds can remain dormant for years—the reason weeds suddenly sprout from apparently bare ground. Ground that becomes disturbed uncovers dormant weed seeds and given a little water and some light, off they go.
Organic approaches to weed control includ:
• Mechanical control. Pull plants, making certain roots come with the top. Hoeing helps alleviate the backaches, but here’s some advice—make certain the roots come with the tops. Attacking the weeds when they are young is the easiest; mature weeds can have opportunistic growth—long taproots or fibrous roots that extend well beyond the top growth.
• Mulching. Organic mulches are effective in reducing weeds, as they reduce the light penetrating to the germinating seeds and those that do emerge from the mulch tend to be leggier and much easier to pull. Examples of organic mulches are pine needles, shredded bark, and straw. Mulch should be several inches deep for the best suppression of weeds.
Inorganic mulches like plastic sheeting are quite useful; black plastic excludes light is the most effective. These can create a problem when the time comes to dispose of it.
Newspaper laid down on paths can keep weeds down and it will decompose over time. But a caveat here: the only Black Widow spider I ever saw in my garden or yard was under a layer of newspaper—user beware!
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