Ground View
by Glen
Andresen |
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This month I continue my discussion of weeds by looking at some specific ways of approaching weed control. My philosophy of dealing with weeds – and other pests in the garden – involves learning about them first.
When I am armed with knowledge about specific weeds’ light, water, space, and nutrient requirements, I can better decide how prevent them from becoming established in the garden, live with them if they do end up there, or if needed, combat them. More accurately, I have learned how to let nature do most of the work of keeping weeds in check.
First let’s look at cultural controls you can use before or when you plant to prevent small weed problems from becoming full blown garden catastrophes. 
Rotate your crops
Planting crops in different beds each year helps disrupt weed cycles and helps you distinguish weeds from veggies.
Plant a cover crop. Summer-seeded buckwheat is a fast-growing crop that suppresses weeds and attracts beneficial insects. Fall-seeded cover crops help reduce weeds by providing tough competition during the winter when the soil is not being cultivated.
Delay your spring planting
I started doing this several years ago in my carrot bed. Carrot seedlings are quite fragile, and it was tedious trying to pull out weeds without pulling out the carrots, too. Now I wait until after the first flush of spring weeds appears. I rake the surface of the soil to disturb and kill the weed seedlings and then plant my own orange delights. I even wait to seed my carrots until I’ve done a second round of light raking.
For slower growing plants, use well-established starts instead of planting from seed. That way you can continue to hoe or rake out weeds without worrying about disturbing tender seedlings.
Focus your watering and fertilizing on your veggies, not the weeds. Spot fertilize rather than applying fertilizers over the entire bed, and place your water lines so that only your plants get supplemental water, not the weeds.
When you plant your veggies, space them so that the mature plants will form a canopy. The leaves of the mature plants should just touch each other. This helps shade out weeds.
Mulch
Try a living mulch (grass or clovers, for example) between perennial plants such as raspberries or fruit trees, or mulch with arborist wood chips, leaves or straw. Avoid relying on porous fabric as a mulch, especially over the long term. Although porous fabric can help suppress weed growth, it does nothing to prevent weed seeds from blowing in and then growing down into and through the fabric. Pulling an established weed out of weed-block fabric without tearing the fabric is next to impossible.
Crowd out weeds in your lawn by reseeding, to make a thicker stand of grass. And don’t cut your grass too short.
To help control white Dutch clover in your lawn, avoid using a high-phosphorus fertilizer. Remove clover by hand pulling or raking before the clover seeds form. Continue to pull as new clover germinates, and reseed your grass.
Solarize your soil
Cover loose, moist soil with thin clear plastic for 10 to 12 weeks in the hot summer sun (as if we get that many weeks of hot sun!). This suppresses weeds and other soil pests, such as symphylans.
Next month I’ll wrap up this discussion of weed control by describing mechanical or physical controls (by you or a machine) that physically disrupt or kill weeds.
Glen Andresen hosts “The Dirtbag,” aired every second Monday at 10:30 a.m. on KBOO 90.7 FM. He tends his bees on a three-quarter acre organic garden at a retreat in Eagle Creek. He also coordinates Metro’s Natural Gardening Program. Comments and questions may be sent to glen@pacifier.com or c/o The Portland Alliance.
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