Effective Weed Control Measures

2024 Author: Sebastian Paterson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:47

A season without tiresome weeding

Pumpkin on a film on a compost heap

The most tedious event for a gardener is weeding the beds from weeds. The root system of many weeds develops faster and penetrates much deeper into the soil, thereby taking away nutrients from cultivated plants. And the terrestrial part of the weeds, growing rapidly (and the period of germination of weed seeds is many times shorter than that of cultivated plants), occupies living space, depriving cultivated plants of sunlight, and they grow by leaps and bounds.

Many weeds are a favorite treat for pests such as snails and naked slugs. They adore dandelion, nettles, thistle. Initially, these pests eat the leaves of the weeds, and then get over to cultivated plants, nullifying the hope of a harvest. In addition, many plant diseases initially appear on weeds, and then spread to cultivated plants. For example, this season powdery mildew first appeared on the plantain, and then moved on to roses, phlox, and melons.

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The weeds are extraordinarily fertile, and their seeds ripen quickly, and then remain viable in the soil for many years. One has only one time not to weed out the garden in time and allow the weed seeds to be in the soil, as weeding for many years to come. For example, the seeds of medium starlet (wood lice) remain viable for 30 years, shepherd's purse - 35, field bindweed - 50 years!

Garlic, perennial onions and sorrel on film

Seed germination is extended over a long period. One weed plant produces several types of seeds. Some of the seeds will germinate in the year of their ripening and will have time to give more than one offspring before winter, others will sprout next spring, and still others in a year. As a result, the period of germination of weed seeds will stretch for many years. If you don't have time to weed out woodlice once, then every year it will appear in the garden - and so on for the next 30 years.

And you do not need to think that, having cut the garden bed once qualitatively, in the future you will not need to weed it. Weed seeds will stay in the soil for many years and wait for their germination year. In addition, some of the weed seeds will fly to the beds by air, and even more of them we ourselves bring into the garden with manure, compost, peat, hay (when mulching). Weed seeds are very viable. Even after passing through the digestive system of the animal, they do not lose germination.

Most weed seeds germinate better if they are at a depth of 0.5-3 cm. Therefore, if it is not enough to water the beds abundantly, sparing strength and precious water, wetting only the upper layers of the soil, we ourselves create good conditions for the germination of weed seeds.

I water my beds no more than twice a week, but abundantly, sparing no water, so that moisture gets to the bottom of the roots of cultivated plants. I check the quality of watering by touch. Such watering is especially necessary for root crops. Many gardeners complain that they do not grow large and high-quality root crops. And the reason often lies precisely in the poor-quality watering of these plants.

If the weed seeds are at a depth of 12-18 cm, then they will not sprout. Therefore, in the fall, I dig the soil under the ridges on a shovel bayonet (so that the weeds are at a sufficient depth) and do not break it, but leave it in a layer. As a result, some of the weed seeds will freeze in winter.

Trying to reduce the number of weeds in my beds, I have developed and strictly every season I spend the following activities at my dacha. I carefully dig the plot outlined for the ridges in the fall, choosing the roots of perennial weeds (if any). I bring in manure and compost. I water the garden bed with a microbiological fertilizer, such as Extrasol or Baikal EM-1, as these preparations have shown themselves very well when used together with organic matter. Then I sow this area with white mustard. In mid-October (if the autumn frosts do not happen earlier), I bury the mustard together with the grown annual weeds into the ground, after chopping them with a shovel. Until April next year, I no longer approach this site.

Marking black spunbond for planting vegetables

In early April, as soon as the soil dries slightly from moisture, I dig the soil there again on an incomplete bayonet of a shovel. I water it with the same microbiological fertilizer. As a result, weed seeds are at a sufficiently deep depth, and they will need to expend a lot of energy to germinate, and many of them will not germinate at all.

But overwintered weed seeds that are in the upper soil layer will sprout in 7-10 days. I again dig this area onto the bayonet of a shovel and water it with microbiological fertilizer. I repeat the same operation for the third time. I dig the soil only in sunny weather, which means that some weed sprouts, once on the surface of the soil, will die. By the beginning of May, the entire section for the ridges is ready. I make ridges and sow root crops there. I water them again with microbiological fertilizer. I close the ridges with dense spunbond.

When the first shoots of root crops appear, there are almost no weeds in the beds. Experienced gardeners know that this is especially true for carrot crops. After all, its seeds germinate for a very long time. And usually, by the time of its emergence, the weeds are already large enough, and it is difficult to detect carrots when weeding. I was convinced more than once that such repeated tillage and control of weed shoots at an early stage then significantly reduce the time for weeding and contribute to an increase in yield. Under melons and gourds, I dig the soil once in the spring. I water it with microbiological fertilizer and cover it with a black film. Until May 20, the soil under the film warms up. Then I make round holes with a diameter of 20 cm in the film and plant seedlings of squash and squash in them. I water the plants at the root - in the holes.

I also plant pumpkin seedlings on a black film, but not in a garden bed, but on a compost heap (see photo). The advantages of such planting of melons and gourds are not only that these beds do not need to weed from weeds, but also that the plants under the film do not need to be watered often (moisture does not evaporate there for a long time), the soil under the plants is much warmer than on covered garden bed. In addition, the crop does not get dirty there, and there is no need to put stands under the zucchini and pumpkins so that they do not rot from contact with wet soil.

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In the autumn period, when the soil in ordinary beds cools down in the evening, it is always warm under melons and gourds. Slugs and snails do not crawl onto such ridges, since the film heats up in the sun, and they cannot move along the hot surface. Therefore, the crop is not affected by these pests. The yield of melons and gourds with this method of planting is much higher than on a regular ridge.

Strawberries on film

By the same principle, I tried to plant perennial onions and sorrel (see photo). Usually, first of all, we all weed the beds with the crops most important to us, and, as a rule, our hands do not reach the perennial onions and sorrel. So they quickly overgrow with weeds. Here, instead of a black film, I used black spunbond, since these plants do not quickly form dense thickets, and in the sun the film heats up very much and the plants wither. Instead of round holes, I made cruciform holes (see photo). I do this so that as the plants grow, the incision can be easily increased. Over the entire summer, once for 5 minutes, I weeded these plantings from small weeds that appeared around young shoots. Then the plants grew and no more weeding was needed. One drawback of such a planting is frequent watering of these plants (I did not water the perennial onions and sorrel in ordinary ridges). Plants on such ridges felt comfortable, even in spite of the heat in July, and delighted with the harvest until late autumn. I do not take off black spunbond for the winter.

I also plant strawberries on black spunbond. I tried to plant it on a black film, but in hot daytime weather the plants wilt badly, and only come to their senses after sunset. The harvest also suffers from this. Therefore, the black film was replaced with black spunbond. With this method of planting, strawberries are always clean (see photo). The mustache does not have time to take root quickly, and it is convenient to remove them.

Peppers on film

This year I tried planting on black spunbond and bell peppers. I made a hot bed. I dug a hole the size of the ridge. A layer of sawdust was laid on the bottom of it. I poured them with Extrasol (20 ml per 10 liters of water). I put a layer of hay on a layer of sawdust and also poured it with the same preparation. On top I put a layer of half-rotted horse manure (manure with sawdust). And she also poured the drug. I placed the removed layer of soil on top, having previously mixed it with compost. She watered the entire bed abundantly and covered it with black spunbond. Two weeks later (on the twentieth of May), I planted seedlings of peppers on the garden bed (having previously made cross-shaped cuts in a spunbond), poured them with the same preparation. I covered the bed with a thick film.

The seedlings have taken root well. I fed the plants once every 14 days with liquid manure with the addition of Extrasol (I first got acquainted with this drug, having received it as a prize for participating in the editorial competition "Summer Season - 2011". I really liked its effect on plants, and then I did bought it more than once in gardening stores). I did not apply any mineral fertilizers. And only in the second half of September, feeding with organic fertilizers was replaced by feeding with nettle infusions (once every 7-10 days) and HB - 101.

In summer, in hot weather, I opened the greenhouse from the ends for ventilation. I watered the plants twice a week. During the season, I have never weeded the plantings, since there were no weeds there. The peppers bore fruit until early October. In autumn, at temperatures below 15 ° C, I did not open the greenhouse. In the cold autumn weather, I checked the soil under the peppers - it was warm. And there is nothing surprising here: the ridge was heated from below (from the heating of sawdust, hay, manure) and from above - from a spanbond heated in the sun. The peppers grew large, the harvest was excellent (readers can see this in the photo). From each of the eleven bushes, I collected an average of 15 kilograms of juicy fruits.

We also keep potato plantings clean, without weeds. To do this, we add manure and compost in the fall and plow them. In the spring, when the soil dries up, we cultivate arable land with a walk-behind tractor. After 10-14 days, we repeat the cultivation. After planting potatoes, usually it happens on May 15, a week later we rake the soil (always in sunny weather). After another 7 days, we repeat this procedure. As a result, we do not have weeds on potato plantings. Of course, it is easier to deal with annual weeds than with perennial weeds. But you can find justice on them too.

The most difficult perennial weeds to give in are runny and thirsty. If the runny has crawled into perennial plants, then during the entire warm season we cut off its leaves, preventing them from growing large. From this, the weed is gradually depleted and dies.

In the uncultivated place of our site, dense thickets of snow have grown. I really wanted to plant raspberries there. I didn't have time to dig out this weed, and I didn't want to waste energy on it. In early spring, she covered this piece of land with a very dense black film, well pressing its edges and central part with bricks. Dreaming disappeared at this place only two years later. We did not shoot the film for the winter.

After an early spring digging of this piece of land, I made sure that the earth was sufficiently loose. I added manure, compost, poured it with microbiological fertilizer and again covered it with black film for a month. Then she planted raspberry bushes there. A week later, in order to prevent the appearance of annual weeds, which got in with manure and compost, I buried this area with a rake. In the first year of planting raspberry weeds were not there. In the second year, starting in spring, she harrowed the ground around raspberries in sunny weather. There were no weeds, we only had to fight the raspberry growth, which was trying to "run away" from the ranks.

Zucchini on film

The worst thing is to deal with a thigh. It is not possible to dig it up completely, since its roots go deep into the ground and are located there in several tiers horizontally, and a huge number of adventitious buds depart from them, from which shoots appear. I tried using a brush in July (when it is hot and there is no chance of precipitation) to apply a concentrated (not diluted with water) roundup solution. This herbicide was applied to each leaf on the thistle plant. Thistle died, but a plastic bag must be put on the plant on which the Roundup is applied so that the herbicide solution does not get on the cultivated plants. The occupation is very time-consuming, and unsafe (after all, chemistry).

It is completely impossible to get rid of the thymus, since the wind now and then brings its seeds from the surroundings. Therefore, during the entire warm period, I pull out the sprouted sprouts of the thymus, thus trying to weaken it.

Although most weeds are medicinal plants, it is best to get rid of them. The only weed that I allow to grow (in the aisles of ridges, around bushes and trees) in the garden is nettles. Every week I cut off the top of this plant and the dry land with garden shears. By the end of summer, the nettle gradually begins to shrink. And I dig it up in the fall. I water the beds with the infusion of this plant, rinse my hair with it, add nettle to soups and brew it into tea.

Proponents of organic farming believe that the growth of weeds in the garden should only be limited. But I think getting rid of weeds is essential. So we will be able to avoid the spread of pests and diseases on cultivated plants, we will get good harvests. The main thing is to do this not to the detriment of your health when you are trying to rid your beds of huge weeds. It is better to prevent the appearance of weeds on the site than to deal with them later. Working in the garden should be fun, not hard labor.