Spring is a wonderful season - birds singing, the first shoots peeping out of the ground and of course weeds. Weeds are the nightmare that any gardener has to contend with. Most people hate sitting down and pulling out weeds and will probably neglect them until they become overgrown and a big problem. When it becomes too much for one person to handle, you may need to employ a professional to do the weeding which will cost money. Hence learning the proper way of weeding will save you time and money.

Here is one method of weeding that you can try. Go to the gardening store and get some weeding material like mulching plastic. Mulching plastic is nothing but thick polyethylene sheets that come in rolls. Measure the area that needs to be covered and buy sufficient quantity of the plastic sheets. Lay the mulch plastic that you bought on the flower beds specifically covering areas where there are weeds. Next, cut out 'X' shapes wherever there are plants to allow them to pop out of the plastic and breathe.

Anchor the mulch sheets in the corner with bricks so that they won't fly off. You have now created a 'heat trap' which will successfully kill off all the small weeds which do not have any space to breathe or grow. Make sure the plastic sheet is well anchored so that there are no air pockets that will allow the weeds to grow. Meanwhile, your plants are not affected since they are free to grow above the plastic sheet. The plastic mulching sheet will have to remain on the flower beds for at least a month. Only then will all the weeds have died completely.

Some weeds will find an escape route through the gaps made for plants to grow. These weeds will have to be pulled out the old fashioned way using a garden weeding pull. This is one of the many ways to eliminate those pesky weeds from your garden. Now, even though this technique seems simple, it is not easy to do this every month. So, try and keep pulling out weeds every week at least or place bark, hay or organic mulching material over the areas that had weeds. This could prevent fresh weeds from growing.

While this is a simple weeding technique, having a weeding schedule could help you be more organized.
• divide the garden into sections
• plan how many sections to weed daily
• follow the weeding pattern you prefer
• hoe larger spaces

The first step to creating and following a weeding schedule is to figure out the sections and rows in your garden. Vegetable gardens are easier to divide since vegetables are mostly grown in rows. Flower gardens could be more spread out and in this case, make a rough division. Mark off each division or segment using stakes or short poles. Now, allocate some part of the day to weeding. If you are a homemaker, this could be late afternoons. If you are a working person, it could be in the evenings or early mornings.

Count your sections and divide them equally so that you do a few everyday for a week. Daily weeding may seem boring and time consuming, but in the long run, it is quicker and easier to weed a little at a time rather than try and weed the entire garden during the weekend. Once you have decided now many sections to weed everyday, you can start your weeding. This could be done using regular weeding tools and pulling out the weeds. Make sure you pull out the weed completely by the root and that you remove all weeds including once growing between plants.

Now, use a stirrup hoe to hoe the larger areas between rows being careful not to go too close to the plants which could result in uprooting them. This takes care of most weeds growing away from plants. By the end of the week, you would have weeded the entire garden without feeling the strain of it. Start the same process every week. If you miss a day, you can make up later. These are two different ways of weeding your garden and there are many more ways to do so. It is up to you to choose the most convenient way so that you have a weed free and beautiful garden.