Natural Ways to Get Rid of Garden Weeds
8 Natural Ways to Get Rid of Garden Weeds
What are weeds?
In simple terms, weeds are plants that grow where you don’t want them to. Most weeds grow wild, but it’s not a rare case to find them among your cultivated plants.
Weeds tend to grow fast than most plants in the garden and also flourish in most types of soils.
If not controlled, weeds can wreak havoc on your gardens and lawns. They compete for vital nutrients and water and can host different garden pests and diseases. If that’s not enough, the unsightly weeds create ugly gardens when they invade flower and vegetable beds.
The best time to get rid of weeds out of your garden is the first few weeks after planting.
While herbicides clear weeds, they come with downsides and controversies that make gardeners look another way.
Luckily, there are eco-friendly techniques at your disposal that you can use to control weeds in your gardens and lawns without risking your kids or pets with the chemicals and toxins in herbicides.
Read on to find the technique that works best for you.
Therapeutic weeding methods
Weeding is one of those mundane chores among hundreds of activities you can do in your garden.
Fortunately, with three methods, you can transform the cumbersome chore into a therapeutic, fun activity that makes your mind wander far and wide.
1. Dig and pull out weeds
Digging and pulling weeds out of your gardens is an old-fashioned weeding method. But it is meditative for many gardeners, and if you do it properly, it is effective.
You can eliminate annual and perennial weeds by ripping out the flowering part and pulling them out of the ground with the entire root system to prevent them from regrowing.
If you go for extended weeding sessions, ensure you get a camp tool or kneeling pad to make you steady and comfortable.
To make your work easier, especially when your lawn is very weedy, gardening tools such as sharp trowels and claws come in handy. You can also invest in standing weed pullers and hand tools to make you comfortable while easing your task. Some of these tools are;
2. Mowing
Pushing a mower across your garden can make you happy and relaxed. So, while enjoying yourself while moving a lawnmower back and forth, you can accomplish a rather cumbersome task, like weeding.
If you’re battling lots of weeds in your garden, mowing might be the best method. If done frequently, the mower can clear weeds altogether since the mower weakens the plants preventing them from setting seeds.
To prevent seeds from spreading in your garden — which might escalate the problem — you attach a clipping bag or basket. But once done, you can empty the clippings on your garden to act as organic fertilizer. It’s a long process, but if you are consistent, it will pay off.
Mowing is, however, not the ultimate solution to your weed problem. It’s only effective with young weeds and weeds that can only spread via seeds. Mowing also does not remove weeds that grow so low to the ground, such as Bindiis.
3. Hoeing
If you like weeding in the first few weeks after planting, hoeing can be your favorite method. It’s especially useful early in the season.
For best results, do it in the morning, cutting the weeds cleanly from the soil and ensuring you glide through to reach hard-to-reach spots. You can even leverage this activity by allowing the cut weeds to dry in the sun before collecting them to make rich compost manure.
Obviously, hoeing down weeds in your entire garden can be cumbersome. But it can be a therapeutic activity if you make it a habit, wedding little and often. With time, there won’t be significant weeds left.
Try healthy methods to get rid of weeds
4. Mulching
Mulching is one of the natural and easy ways to keep your yard free from these garden bullies.
Mulching works by blocking weed seeds from light to prevent them from germinating. And in case they do, they won’t sprout as they lack enough energy to penetrate through the mulch. For success, ensure you put down a mulching layer of about 2–3 inches.
There are different biodegradable mulches you can use to suppress weeds. Straws are popular in vegetable gardens, but they harbor many weed seeds. Grass clippings are also popular if you can tolerate their not-so-much anesthetic look.
However, the best natural mulches that suppress weeds while also leaving your garden looking appealing are bark mulches, including Triple Shred Mulch, Nature Scapes, and Color Enhanced Mulch.
Others locally available mulches are wood chips, garden compost, leaves, and hulls.
The best part? These natural mulches enrich your garden by releasing essential nutrients to your garden, helping your valuables flourish.
Of course, mulching is not a method you should use in your entire garden, especially if you have cover crops and grasses. It does its magic, suppressing weeds in areas around other plants, including trees.
And since these mulching products break down over time, it’s advisable to replace them annually.
5. Deploy newspapers
Using newspapers is another effective method to smother weeds without endless pulling. Newspapers work similarly to mulching; blocking the precious light.
It’s an effective method, especially when you apply it early in the season — when starting a fresh garden bed or space.
And once you get your newspapers, the procedure is straightforward; water your bed to make it completely wet. Then lay your newspaper on top of the weeds and in-between your plants. To make it effective, ensure a thickness of around 10 pages to leave the weed with zero chances of growth while also preventing the weed seeds from sprouting.
Using newspapers is not 100% effective, as some persistent perennial weeds may survive. However, these few weeds won’t pose a significant problem to your garden.
And just like the natural mulching products, newspapers are non-toxic and will help build the soil by attracting useful bugs such as earthworms while also releasing nutrients as they decompose.
Kill weeds naturally
You can ensure a weed-free garden by choosing to kill them, especially if your garden is heavily infested with these unwanted plants.
To kill weeds naturally, you can use some of these techniques.
6. Use a specialized weed torch
Specialized weed torches destroy weeds thanks to their extremely high temperatures of about 80°C and 600°C.
It’s an easy process once you’ve got your weed torch. Pass it over the weed foliage, just enough time to wilt the weeds to destroy the tissues, killing the plant.
It is very effective in smothering young plants and also annual weeds. It can also be the best way to prevent weeds that grow in cracks and walkways.
For perennial weeds, using a weed torch only kills the above-ground parts of the plants — hence, they can regrow again. So you have to repeat the process and eventually, you can have a weed-free garden.
However, use this technique with caution, especially on windy days, as the fire can quickly spread to unwanted areas or even to a neighbor’s wooden fence, causing significant damage. Also, never use it on poisonous plants which release harmful oils when exposed to extreme heat.
7. Use boiling water
Do you want a simple, cheap solution to unwanted plants growing in your garden paths, walkways, driveways, or between pavements or bricks? Using boiling water for the occasion is a brilliant technique.
It is as simple as grabbing a kettle of hot water and pouring it directly onto the heads of your nuisance plants. The boiling water will kill the weed and any dormant seeds in the soil. Even the roots of the weeds won’t survive the boiling water. If you are dealing with tough perennial weeds, you need to apply 2–3 times to realize the results.
Use potholders, and wear closed shoes and long pants to avoid coming in contact with the hot water.
You cannot, however, use this method if the weeds are closely bordering your blooms, as they can also die. It might also kill beneficial organisms in the soil hence why it is used in areas like pavements.
8. Use vinegar
Vinegar is a multipurpose natural liquid famous among gardeners for sanitizing fresh farm produce, including fruits and vegetables.
But you can also use it for keeping weeds at bay, as the acetic acid in vinegar is effective in deterring weeds.
The standard white vinegar in your pantry — the one you buy from grocery stores — is still decent, but far better to use horticultural vinegar found in garden centers that pack more punch due to its high acidity.
You can put your vinegar in a pump sprayer or spray bottle and go on to battle those pesky plants, while you can use a brush. All you need to ensure is to direct the liquid to the only unwanted plants since the vinegar will destroy any vegetation it comes across with. You might want to carry out this operation in the early hours when there’s little or no wind to avoid contaminating your prized blooms.
