Stay On Top of It
Now that your 5×5 Challenge garden in growing like a champ, the weeds are probably growing as well. The key to keeping your gardening chores to a minimum is to weed often. If you pull any weeds you see when you’re checking on the garden, it is never a huge chore. Weeding will happen without you even noticing.
I’ve been pulling the weeds when they’re tiny, this is the best way. They don’t have big roots and don’t disturb the soil as much when you pull them. They’re also much easier to pull when they’re so small.
Mulching is also a great way to keep weeding chores to a minimum. A couple inches of mulch will help keep weed seeds from germinating and it helps the soil retain moisture. I wouldn’t use that brown bark stuff most people use on their flowerbeds, some shredded leaves or good compost will do. Spread an even layer around your plants, you can skip the lettuce patch and the scallions as they’re probably too close together and too small yet.
Any tips to stay on top of the weeds?
One of my buddies goes out to her garden every day.. it just takes a few seconds to knock down any weeds he sees so its never a chore..
Personally I love using straw as a mulch.. but cant always use it.. Its my favorite mulch though.. toss on 6 or 8 inches and forget about weeding for the most part.
“They say” dont use fresh grass clippings, but years ago in Texas I had a garden that was mainly sand… Keeping it cool and keeping it watered were tough jobs.. so I’d go to town with my pickup on the weekends when everyone was mowing their lawns and pick up their fresh grass bags and take them home & put straight on my garden.. I kept about 6 or 8 inches of grass clippings on the beds at all times.. I did keep them about 3 inches away from the plant stems and never suffered any problems with putting green plant material on them at all. Before long, my soil was the most gorgeous loamy sand and I could stick my arm down into my soil about a foot & a half before I met with much resistance.. so if it can be found.. grass clippings are wonderful to keep weeds from coming up as well..
to KimH's comment
Be mindful of and get grass clippings only from folks who don’t spray or you might get stuff that kills your garden. I never get those bags due to the fact most town people spray or have their yard sparyed. I do strictly organic gardening.
to Deb's comment
Im strictly Organic too, nowadays..
What I was speaking to was from about 25 years ago.., I did say Years Ago.. but I would like to say this.. Though Im sure many of the bags of grass had common lawn chemicals in them, I never ever had any that killed any part of my gardens, ever. I did it for quite a few years.
I was sharing an example of that you CAN put thick amounts of fresh green grass on a garden & not affect the garden other than to keep it mulched, keep the sun from drying it out & keeping weeds at bay, and building sandy soil in to a beautiful loamy sand, not where to get grass clippings.
to KimH's comment
I use oak leaves as mulch. They aren’t shredded, they are the small Live Oak leaves, then I scatter a bit of manure on top to weigh them down so they don’t blow away. It definitely keeps the weeds down. If I see something popping up, I get to it when it is small, it is so much easier. If we every get rain down here I like to weed other areas that are out of control or areas I want to increase the garden because the soil is softer and weeding is so much easier otherwise it is like a concrete parking lot out there in areas that are amended.
to Sincerely, Emily's comment
what has seemed to work for me and I’d love to get my garden into the concept of back to eden gardening….I use grass clippings in the rows of plants and this year tried something new. I purchased these rolls of paper found at menard’s in the paint section. Hubby cut them in half for me and I was able to get 4 rows out of each half roll piece. I then put straw down on the top. The paper rows are for walking and the grass for my plants. I have a terrible time keeping up with the weeding and this has helped so far but the corn area is another story!
to AmyS's comment