Weeding is one thing that any gardener swiftly grows to hate. And the older you get, the less fun it is to land on your knees, bend over and dig the little blighters out. But not weeding can lead to a whole lot more pain than a sore back or a knee with twinges.
Weeds grow fast and set seeds even faster. If you see one weed, you can bet that it’s invited about 500 of its closest relatives to join it in the ultimate comfort of your garden.
Deadly Rain
I want to kill weeds too. And I want to do it quickly and painlessly. But I won’t do what a lot of other backyard gardeners do. I won’t reach for the handy spray bottle of herbicide conveniently sold at my local, big box, home improvement store.
Herbicides are fast and deadly. But they don’t just kill weeds.
Research is beginning to unravel the reasons behind the death of millions of honey bees, worldwide and it looks like the root of the problem are products containing neo-nicotinoids – weed-killing products readily available in this country and in Europe.
The debate over cause and effect is in full swing right now but I’m old enough to remember a similar debate about two weed-killing agents – 2-4-D and 2-4-5T. Supposedly so safe that as little children, we were given the job of filling weed wands with this chemical, adding water and running through our very big yard, barefoot, killing weeds.
So far, both my brothers have succumbed to brain tumors and my older sister survived ovarian cancer and is now battling kidney cancer. So that’s one reason why I don’t recommend using any herbicides in any form.
I also live in the country. Everyone has wells. Do you really want to poison your neighbors, downstream? There are days when I consider it (joking) but polluting the water supply just doesn’t seem like a nice thing to do.
The Queen of No Weed Gardening
What do I do to get rid of weeds?
I confess that in the early days of my organic gardening life, when I was still gainfully employed, I bought a flame thrower. No, really, I bought a flame thrower and used it to burn weeds out. That’s how desperate I was.
But it was expensive, the propane tank was heavy, bulky and an added cost. And frankly, I never really killed the weeds, just singed them enough to make them angry and hardy! And I lit my house on fire…but that’s a story for another day.
When I found the method developed by Ruth Stout, a pioneer in organic gardening and, even more importantly, a pioneer in making it so easy, I jumped on board with both feet. Here’s how she described her system in an interview done by Mother Earth News.
“My no-work gardening method is simply to keep a thick mulch of any vegetable matter that rots on both my vegetable and flower garden all year round. As it decays and enriches the soil, I add more. The labor-saving part of my system is that I never plow, spade, sow a cover crop, harrow, hoe, cultivate, weed, water or spray. I use just one fertilizer (cottonseed or soybean meal), and I don’t go through that tortuous business of building a compost pile.”
You can read the full article on Mother Earth News. Or you can read her book aptly titled Gardening Without Work: For the Aging, the Busy & the Indolent
She has been my gardening guru for years and this book tells you how to suppress weeds but it also contains other organic gardening tips and lots of practical information and ideas that still work in the 21st century.
The Oxymoron of No Kill Weed Killing
Stout’s method may sound ridiculously simple but it works. I spend 4 hours in the fall mulching and about 10 hours in the spring and summer weeding. And my patch is pretty big – 20 feet wide and about 75 feet long.
It can’t get much easier than this. Every fall I cover my entire garden with wet newspaper and straw – about 8 inches of it piled up on top of the paper. Weeds (and all their seeds) are buried alive and prepping the garden for the next spring and summer is done.
And guess what? While you are killing weeds and saving your back and knees, you are also feeding your soil. All that mulch breaks down and enriches the dirt beneath it.
Sure, some weeds might poke their beady little heads up from time to time but they are few and far between. All I have to do is just put more mulch on top of them and…they die. But sometimes, I actually welcome the chance to break out my other secret weapon.
It’s the Fiskar’s Big Grip Garden Knife – the single, best tool I have ever bought and used in my garden. No weed gets away and because of its design, it’s easy on my hands. Made of aluminium, this knife comes with a lifetime guarantee and does the job efficiently and effectively.
What an amazing system – very few weeds and enriched soil served with a side order of revenge…and a back that doesn’t ache!
Next week I want to start talking about mid-season and fall planting and all the ways you can extend your garden crop!
Grow So Easy Organic 