Whacking the Weeds – Green Gardening Tips!
5+ Tips to Kill Weeds and Keep Them from Coming Back
There’s nothing like a healthy green garden with flowers and veggies aplenty. Unfortunately, weeds seem to agree and love to get right in the mix.
So how can you keep the weeds from becoming a problem? There’s always herbiides, but a lot of them have dangerous chemicals and are responsible for the massive declines in bee populations.
Well, as the World’s Greenest Carpet Cleaner, we know you can get great carpet cleaning results without relying on harsh chemicals. The same is true of gardening.
So here are 7 tips on how to whack the weeds safely and effectively.
Tip 1: Weed Often, Weed Regularly
Let’s start with a boring but important tip. Have a regular weeding schedule that you follow. By getting out there and eliminating the weeds on the regs, you’ll keep the weeds down to a minimum.
We’d recommend at least twice a week. If you’re up for it, though, walk your garden every day and spend a few minutes pulling weeds. After the first few rounds, it’ll take no time at all.
Tip 2: Weed When Wet
Weeds are stubborn but much less so when the soil is damp. Try weeding right after rainfall. If it’s been dry recently, spray down the weed and then pull it.
Tip 3: Do Not Disturb
Weeds are more likely to pop-up if you disturb the soil, so be careful when you dig and try to minimize other disruptions. Likewise, when you pull weeds in soil, it’s a good idea to use a long, thin knife to cut the roots deeper in the soil before you remove the weed, as that will limit soil disturbance.
Tip 4: Master the Mulch
Mulch is a great tool for fighting weeds and keeping your soil healthy. Try keeping beds covered in 2-3 inches of mulch to starve weeds of light. You can also use newspaper, landscaping fabric, cardboard below the mulch to further block light from reaching the soil.
Tip 5: Trimming Weeds
Sometimes you don’t have time to pull every weed, but what you can do is deadhead weeds that are blooming or cut the whole weed right down to the soil. Sure, the weed will grow back or produce a new head, but during that time it can’t produce seeds. Think of this as a way to buy yourself some time.
Tip 6: Keep Plants Close
Just like every other plant, weeds need sunlight. Mulching cuts down on their ability to get that lovely sun-juice, but another way to starve them out is by grouping your plants close to each other. By grouping them, you can block light from reaching the more exposed soil, which will help reduce weeds.
Tip 7: Water Management
One of the best things you can do to reduce weeds is to carefully manage how you water your garden. Rather than setting a sprinkler or spraying with a hose, try using drip irrigation hoses. There’s a little bit of setup that goes into them, but they’re a phenomenal way to both save water and to keep it away from the weeds.
Speaking of saving water, did you know that Oxi Fresh helps conserve 95% of the water that many other cleaners waste? Our carpet cleaning process is able to get world-class results while saving dozens of gallons of water per home.
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Thanks to Barbara Pleasant of fineGardening.com, CreativeVegetableGardener.com, and Julie Martens Forney of BonniePlants.com for the great information!
Be sure to check out our urban gardening tips.
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