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weed control
Keeping your landscape plantings, flower beds, and nursery crops
free of weeds is a battle, but if you approach it with a strategic
plan, you will prevail. In order to develop a plan, you first must
understand how weeds work, and what kind of weeds you are dealing
with.
Basically weeds grow either from seed, or they reproduce from their
roots. As the roots grow outward from the parent plant, new plants
sprout up from the lateral roots, creating more parent plants and
the process continues and the weeds thrive. Weeds that tend to
reproduce from the root are usually more difficult to control.
Weed control facts? Weeds are plants, and they function just like
the desirable plants in your yard. They need water, sunlight, and
nutrition to survive. Of these three key survival needs, the easiest
one for a gardener to eliminate is sunlight. Through proper mulching
you can eliminate the sunlight.
But first, let’s look at the steps you should go through before you
mulch, then we’ll discuss the best mulching techniques to use. In
order for your weed control efforts to be truly effective, you
should do everything in your power to make your gardens as weed free
as possible before you plant or mulch. There are a couple of ways
you can go about this, either organically or with chemicals. I don’t
like using chemicals, but I do use them for weed control, and I use
them for pest control when necessary.
I’ll discuss organic control first. The first thing you should do is
remove all unwanted vegetation from your planting area. Using a hoe,
spade or other digging device, undercut the roots and remove the
undesirable plants, roots and all. Then you should work the soil by
roto-tilling or turning the soil by hand.
Once worked, let the soil sit for four days or so, and work it
again. Keep doing this over and over as long as time permits. This
process serves two purposes. It brings the roots that were left in
the soil close to the surface so they can be dried by the sun, which
will make them non-viable, and it disturbs the weed seeds that have
started to germinate, which makes them non-viable as well. The
longer you continue this process the more weeds you are eliminating
from your garden.
Weed control facts? Depending on the time of the year, there are a
few billion weed seeds drifting through the air at any given time,
so to think that you can eventually rid a garden of weed seed is
false thinking, but at least this process is effective for the
remaining roots, which are the most difficult to control.
With that process complete, go ahead and plant your garden. When
you’re done planting you can either mulch the bed, or keep turning
the soil on a weekly basis to keep it free of weeds. Most people opt
to mulch. Not only does mulch help to control the weeds, but if you
select a natural mulch it also adds organic matter to the soil which
makes for better gardening results down the road.
Before mulching you can spread newspaper (7-9 layers thick) over the
soil and place the mulch over top of that. The newspaper will block
the sunlight from reaching the surface of the soil and help to keep
weed growth to a minimum. The newspaper will eventually decompose,
and not permanently alter the make up of your garden. Paper grocery
bags also work well, so the next time you hear, “Paper or Plastic?”,
you’ll know how to answer.
What about black plastic, or the weed barrier fabric sold at garden
centers? I don’t like either and I’ll tell you why. For one, neither
one of them ever go away, and the make up of your garden is forever
altered until you physically remove them, which is a real pain in
the butt.
Weed control facts? Plastic is no good for the soil because soil
needs to breathe. Plastic blocks the transfer of water and oxygen,
and eventually your soil will suffer, as will your garden. It’s all
right to use plastic in a vegetable garden as long as you remove it
at the end of the season and give the soil a chance to breathe.
Weed barrier fabrics allow the soil to breathe, but what happens is
that when you mulch over top of the fabric, which you should because
the fabric is ugly, the mulch decomposes and becomes topsoil. Weeds
love topsoil, and they will grow like crazy in it. Only problem is,
they are growing on top of the fabric, and you are stuck with a ton
of problems, like a weedy garden, and a major job of trying to
remove the fabric that is now firmly anchored in place because the
weeds have rooted through it.
Weed fabric is also porous enough that if an area becomes exposed to
the sunlight, enough light will peek through and weeds below the
fabric will grow, pushing their way through the fabric. I don’t like
the stuff. I’ve removed miles of it from landscapes for other people
because it did not work as they had expected.
Weed control facts? Controlling weeds with chemicals is fairly easy,
and very effective if done properly. I know that many people don’t
approve of chemical weed controls, but millions of people use them,
so I might as well tell you how to get the most effect using them.
There are two types of chemical weed controls, post-emergent, and
pre-emergent. In a nutshell, a post-emergent herbicide kills weeds
that are actively growing. A pre-emergent prevents weed seeds from
germinating. Of the post- emergent herbicides there are both
selective and non-selective herbicides. A selective herbicide is
like the herbicides that are in weed-and-feed type lawn fertilizers.
The herbicide will kill broad leaf weeds in your lawn, but it
doesn’t harm the grass.
One of the most popular non-selective herbicides is Round-up®, it
pretty much kills any plant it touches. Rule number one. Read the
labels and follow the safety precautions!!! Round-up® is very
effective if used properly, but first you must understand how it
works.
Round-up® must be sprayed on the foliage of the plant, where it is
absorbed, then translocated to the root system where it then kills
the plant. It takes about 72 hours for the translocation process to
completely take place, so you don’t want to disturb the plant at all
for at least 72 hours after it has been sprayed.
After 72 hours you can dig, chop, roto-till, and pretty much do as
you please because the herbicide has been translocated throughout
the plant. The manufacture claims that Round-up® does not have any
residual effect, which means that you can safely plant in an area
where Round-up® has been used. However, I would not use it in a
vegetable garden without researching further.
No residual effect also means that Round-up® has no effect
whatsoever on weed seeds, so there is absolutely no benefit to
spraying the soil. Only spray the foliage of the weeds you want to
kill. Be careful of over spray drifting to your desirable plants. To
prevent spray drift I adjust the nozzle of my sprayer so that the
spray droplets are larger and heavier, and less likely to be carried
by the wind. I also keep the pressure in the tank lower by only
pumping the tank a minimum number of strokes. Just enough to deliver
the spray. Buy a sprayer that you can use as a dedicated sprayer for
Round-up® only. Never use a sprayer that you have used for
herbicides for any other purpose. Once you have sprayed the weeds,
waited 72 hours and then removed them, you can go ahead and plant.
Mulching is recommended as described above. To keep weed seeds from
germinating you can apply a pre-emergent herbicide.
Depending on the brand, some of them are applied over top of the
mulch, and some are applied to the soil before the mulch is applied.
A pre-emergent herbicide creates a vapor barrier at the soil level
that stops weed seed germination, and can be very effective at
keeping your gardens weed free. They usually only last about 5 or 6
months and need to be re-applied.
Visit a full service garden center and seek the advice of a
qualified professional to select the pre-emergent herbicide that
will best meet your needs. Never use a pre-emergent herbicide in
your vegetable garden, and be careful around areas where you intend
to sow grass seed. If you spill a little in an area where you intend
to plant grass, the grass will not grow. They really do work.
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