tips for garden weeds?

**Sara Noel** · 06-26-2007, 08:31 PM

Everyone has tips for weeding. Share yours.

**Edna_E** · 06-26-2007, 09:30 PM

ok, this is just in the interest of giving a response where there were none - but I eat some of mine. I get wild spinach, which is not bad if picked young. The fact that I can eat it adds motivation that I am sorely lacking otherwise.

**trishh** · 06-27-2007, 02:01 AM

You can use salt on dandilions and vinegar works when sprayed on weeds. I get them or try to get them young. Pulling works to. I also have a hula hoe. I love it. My grandfather had one for years and when i got old enough to have my own garden i bought one.

**Sara Noel** · 06-29-2007, 09:45 PM

I weed after it rains. The weeds are much easier to pull.

**BeyondFrugal** · 06-29-2007, 09:50 PM

I do it the old fashioned way. Pull them or hoe them. Unless it's an edible weed. There's a Lamb's quarter popped up by the zucchinies. I made a little dam around it and it gets it's share of water.

-Elaine

**Darlene** · 06-30-2007, 07:09 AM

I try to ignore them in hopes that someone else (dh) will take an interest in them.

Really though, he is quicker...hoe man extraordinaire. I try to just keep up with them on a daily basis but it doesn't always work out.

**Laurie in Bradenton** · 06-30-2007, 01:49 PM

I weed when I run the mister system. Keeps me cool and I love the smell of the damp earth. They pull out easier too.
Early morning or late evening are my favorite times.

Laurie in Bradenton

**pkellyc** · 06-30-2007, 01:52 PM

I have this old weeding tool that sort of looks like a hoe but isn't. I have never seen another like it. It digs up the small weeds up to be raked up. Tap root weeds still have to be dug but my favorite garden tool makes fast work out of the weeding.

When I had a large vegtable garden I used to put my grass clippings on it to keep weeds down and moisture in. I had a rather large yard and there were plenty of clippings. Enough so that there were hardly any weeds at all. I hear you can use newspaper but it doesn't seem to me like it would be all that attractive.

**BornInSeptember** · 07-02-2007, 04:23 PM

Bark mulch and a once a week walk past the flower bed to pick up the three or four weeds that actually make it through. I love it!

**Southernmama** · 07-02-2007, 07:45 PM

Stare at my flower garden once pretty...now imbedding with weeds and it's been screaming at me for ages to WEED IT! I will have to before my bestfriends comes to visit..she'd fall over! lol

**maryannsms** · 08-10-2009, 10:50 AM

If weeds have begun to grow between the rows I suggest a Warren Hoe, it has a sharp pointed blade that just right for removing small weeds in between rows and making furrows. If you have a large area that needs weeding use a Dutch hoe it easy to use with a simple pushes and pulls action.

**frugalfranny** · 08-10-2009, 02:42 PM

HOLY COW! This post was from '07.

guess we still have weeds in '09!!!

**Judi Dial** · 08-10-2009, 07:20 PM

I plant things that produce LOTS of seeds and then let them go to seed deliberately. I have root parsley all over my garden. I use it and pull it out willy nilly as I let it go to seed every year and it comes back,and chokes out a good many of the other "weeds." Another thing I do this with is chicory.

Do I get weeds? Of course I do, but many fewer than I used to. When I need space for something I'm planting, I just pull the chickory or parsley and then use it, if I can.

My garden this time of year looks unkempt and "weedy" as the chicory is flowering/seeding and so is the parsley (a biennial). If you're a "neat freak" this will NOT work for you.

I also pull whatever true weeds I find, if any, every time I go out into my garden.

Judi

**Missy** · 08-10-2009, 07:52 PM

sigh, the ressurection of this thread made me get off my butt and weed more.

I made some observations, my big leaved items (squash, pumpkin, etc) have very few weeds under them while the leaves that allow light through them are loaded with weeds. So perhaps underplanting with thick ground covers would be a good option.

the best defense is a good offense i believe. I have landscape cloth and mulch in other parts of the garden and that works beautifully.

I personally don't use a weedkiller, at least not a chemical one in my garden. It's not fair to other gardeners as if you live as close to neighbors as I do, the accidental overspray caught in the wind can hurt tender plants in other gardens. A good pair of gloves and a few extra helpers are good for us. Plus it gets us out in the sun and working together toward a common goal.

**Contrary Housewife** · 08-10-2009, 11:44 PM

I have started putting plastic weed barrier down, and that helps a lot. I also try to pull weeds when they are small, as soon as they are big enough to get ahold of. But there comes a point, usually around the beginning of August where I just give up. Weeds are knee deep right now, the tomatoes are so overgrown I can't tell which plant is which, and the squash and cucumbers have grown out into the grass. We have chiggers and mosquitoes so bad in the summer that a 2 minute foray into the garden leaves me with welts all over. Weeding is pretty much out of the question. But, hey it will die over the winter and get tilled under and be all pretty again in the spring.