You planted your garden, but now the weeds are taking over. You need to keep your garden as weed free as possible because weeds take valuable moisture and nutrients away from your vegetable plants.
Here are some of the ways to keep your organic garden as weed free as possible without the use of toxic herbicides.
Use a Hoe
Take a hoe and use it to dislodge weeds out of the soil. The most effective way is to hoe the weeds out, and then remove them from the garden. Sometimes after you hoe, weeds will still have a root in the dirt, enabling them to still grow. If they are small, you can skip this step, but larger weeds should be removed. You can put these weeds into your compost pile. That is where they will do the most good, providing they do not have seeds. Reach down and pull the weeds from the ground. This is best done while the soil is damp because the roots come out easier. Try not to trample the wet ground down because that will make it hard.
You can use mulch around your plants to keep weeds down. This will also keep moisture in the soil. The best mulch is grass clippings from your lawn, leaves, or weeds. You can also buy straw or hay to put between the rows and around plants. They even sell wood chips as mulch, but this should be used around trees. Generally, they are not small enough to break down for next years planting.
Before you plant, you can buy black gardening plastic and put it on top of the ground. Stake it in various places so the wind won't take it away from your garden. For best results till or work up your garden before doing this so the soil will be easier to dig a hole. Then all you need to do is cut an X in the plastic, dig a hole and stick your plant into the ground.
Prepare the Garden Ground in the Fall
The best time to take care of those weeds is in the fall. Think about where you want your garden, then mark the spot out. Next, get some cardboard or newspaper. Remove the plastic from the cardboard then lay the cardboard out on the area you have designated to be your garden. If you use newspaper, be sure to use at least 10 pages for thickness. No need to remove your weeds. If they are tall, mow over them first, then add your cardboard or newspaper. Over the top of this, put a layer of grass clippings, leaves, hay or straw. Layering again, add some good, rich top soil, preferably compost if you have some. Water this down and keep it watered until the snow flies. Next spring, while everyone else is getting sore backs from all that tilling, spading, and hoeing; you can just go out and plant. The cardboard or newspapers should be decomposed by now, If they are not, they will continue to go back into the ground.
