Practical Weed Control

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I should illuminate. Nature abhors bare ground and will always try to cover it. If the bare ground is fill or some other poor soil, the first things to grow there will be stem or creeper. The creepers bring in nutrients from the surrounding soil. They drop leaves or die, leaving a little fertilizer in their wake, and improving the soil in the process.

The stems come floating in or are dropped by a bird or arrive in some other mystical way. They may germinate and find the soil so inhospitable that they die soon, but even then they have left the soil richer for their having been. Those that can root and grow will force roots down through the poor soil and into subsoil, opening the ground and bringing nutrients to the surface. They also have received energy from the sun, which they leave with the soil. Ultimately this soil becomes rich enough to support grasses. If left to nature it will continue with a mixed growth, ultimately attracting larger plants and possibly developing into a forest. If we come along and mow it, the stems and creepers will have a tough time surviving while the grass will thrive.

The Annual Garden (2-Step Program)

This is a garden that is already established and in which the soil is being turned at least every other year. Most gardens are turned every year but I like to plant my early crops in untilled soil. I can plant my peas, spinach, and early lettuce as soon as the soil is dry enough, maybe a little sooner, because it is not being tilled or spaded over or driven on. I just pull back mulch from the year before and plant. It may be a month later before I hire someone to till the garden. This means I don't have to worry about nature's spring garden because the tiller is going to turn it into green manure.

A Spring Check...

Some weed control takes place during that month but not much. There is only one weed that I am on the lookout for: witchgrass. There is not much chance for it to hide. When I see the green leaves of this grass that propagates through rhizomes, an underground stem, I go digging for the propagators. I love digging in the soil at this time of year after being kept away from that silky texture while it was frozen. I have a four-pronged cultivator that does a good job of pulling the rhizomes but somehow I always end up on my knees with my hands buried.

This spring check isn't much work anymore. The first few years it seemed like I might not win. Don't get the idea that I diligently went after all of the witchgrass I could find. That might have seemed like work. I just do what I feel like doing when I feel like doing it and it seems to work out. When I had a market garden I first chased the witchgrass with a year of cultivation and thereafter kept it from creeping back in from the edges by tilling a swath around the garden several times during the growing season.

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