6 Ways to Control Weeds for vegetables and Flowers

Weeds are the major problems of home gardeners, as a small scale or a large scale gardening. It entails time, efforts, and money, and sometimes eats up most of your resources in maintaining your garden.

The use of commercial weed control method would also affects our environment by air pollution and besides it’s being costly, draining your budget.

Therefore, as a gardener, you should  plan properly how to control weeds before going into this venture to avoid further frustration resulting to great losses in your part.

6 Ways  to Control Weed Occurence

1)   Prevention is better than cure

The best defense against  weed occurrence is prevention .  It is much cheaper and easier to prevent weeds to grow than to kill them after they appear on the ground.

2)    Wise Planning is still the best

When planning your garden, see to it that you’ll eliminate weeds in the growing area prior to planting.  Be sure to remove the entire plant as well as the seeds as much as possible to avoid after growth.

3)   Exposure the Soil for Solarization

In the field of agriculture cultural management aspects, this is a very effective means of preventing weed growth without chemicals.  In soil solarization, it  involves removing all plants and weeds and retiling the soil.  After the soil has been moistened, cleared and raked to remove any roots, rocks, and sharp objects, it is covered with a clear polyethylene sheet stretched tightly in place for 4-6 weeks during the peak sunlight of early summer.  (You can use rocks or cinderblocks to hold the plastic in place.)  The sun will totally heat or cook the soil killing any unsprouted seeds or remaining weeds.

4)  Application of Mulching Materials

With the use of plastic mulch, placed on top of the soil, it  helps to suppress weed growth by blocking sunlight to the soil preventing germination. 

5)  Biodynamic Gardening or Close Planting

Biodynamic or French Intensive Gardening is generally grown in raised beds.  The soil is double dug to a depth of two feet which allows plants to more easily send their roots deeper down to access water and nutrients.  The plants are planted close to each other so that the foliage of each adult plant will touch the foliage of another plant.  This creates a leafy cover known as a living mulch.  This will minimize weed growth as well as stabilizing soil temperature and moisture retention by the soil.  You also get a higher yield from a smaller space by planting closer together. 

6) Use of  Natural Herbicides

Application with Vinegar. Vinegar solution is sprayed on full strength to kill weeds.  You can use it between bricks or paver stones to kill weeds and grasses. Spreading Salt. When applied directly to the soil, salt will also kill grass and weeds between bricks and will deter regrowth.

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Cris Ramasasa, Freelance writer, writes about home gardening and Internet marketing tips. You can get a copy of his latest ebook “How to get started in Flower Gardening”and  “Vegetable Gardening made Easy” and lots of tips, Free articles, and bonuses at: www.crisramasasa.com