How to Control Weeds in Vegetable & Flower Gardens

One of the most basic garden care tasks is weeding. Weeds in a flower or vegetable garden are a problem because they compete with your plants for growing space, water and nutrients in the soil. For this reason, letting weeds grow out of control will compromise the success of your flowers and vegetables. Weed control can be an irritating chore for gardeners, but by following a few basic practices, you can keep the weeds and the headaches that go with them to a minimum.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Gardening gloves
• Hoe
• Mulch
• Drip hoses

1. Pull weeds by hand. For success using this method, do it daily to keep them from getting completely out of control. A light session pulling small, tender weeds every day or two is far easier than waiting until they are large and overgrown and doing it all at once. By waiting too long you also run the risk of allowing the weeds to go to seed. Try to pull weeds after rain or watering because the roots will come out of the soil more easily.

2. Cut weeds off at the root with a hoe. A hoe will not remove the roots of the weeds, so they can grow back. However, it is so quick and easy that in a few minutes a day you can cut down on the weed growth very effectively.

3. Mulch to keep weed growth to a minimum. Putting mulch over the soil in your vegetable or flower garden creates a barrier to discourage weeds from growing up in the first place, reducing the amount of weeding you will ultimately have to do.

4. Avoid giving water to the weeds. Using drip irrigation allows you to provide water directly to the good plants, your flowers and vegetables, while drying out the weeds growing in between.

Tips & Warnings

• The key to weed control in your vegetable or flower garden is staying on top of it. If you let the weeds go for too long you will have a much more difficult problem on your hands.

References

• GardenGuides.com