Gardening | Vegetables | How To Keep Your Garden Weed Free
How To Keep Your Garden Weed Free
One thing I HATED about gardening is pulling weeds every day. If I could eliminate that part, I thought I may actually enjoy it. So I did something different and was amazed at the results!
My father had been gardening ever since I could remember. Our first house had a little back yard and he turned about half it into his garden.
He grew the usual stuff an Italian man grows: Tomatoes, Zucchini, Onions, Garlic, different kinds of lettuce, and so on.
I remember always wanting to help when I was a little kid. I would pick up the shovel and thought I was actually gardening. But, at that age, my “gardening” would be nothing more than playing in the dirt, probably causing my dad to do less gardening and more cleanup and fixing!
As I got older, the playing with the shovel turned into working with the shovel. I’ll tell you this much, that wasn’t as fun!
But, I did learn how to till the garden using nothing my a shovel and my muscles. Even to this day, I can till with the best of them.
I went off to college and dad bought a gas tiller. His reasoning was, his “other tiller” (me), didn’t do the job anymore!
One of the things I disliked the most about gardening, was keeping those darn weeds at bay! Holy cow, the weeds grew quicker than the actual garden stuff! I know the weeds had to be pulled out, but it was something I did NOT look forward to doing.
My parents eventually moved to a property with a lot more ground. What did dad do? He upped his garden game. He had THREE different gardens around the property. Each one bigger than the one he used to have at the first house.
Some guys like to golf, some guys like to play cards, not my dad, he LOVED his gardens! He would be in the gardens all day, singing and whistling away, not a care in the world.
Of course, I would help when I was there. This time though, the gas tiller did all the shovel work, I was just there to do the weed pulling. Oh, did I mention I really, REALLY dislike weed pulling?
A couple of weeks before my dad passed, he again planted three big gardens. After he passed, it was my mother and me who tended to the gardens. After all the work and love my dad put into these gardens, we just couldn’t let them go away. So, that summer, mom and I did our best to keep the gardens going, which included pulling weeds….a LOT of weeds!
The next year, we decided to just have ONE garden, and smaller one at that. But, I wanted to find a way to keep the weeds at a minimum at best, so I started talking with people and went online to see what others were doing.
I ran across a couple of things I’ve never heard before. I’m sure others knew about it, but I didn’t.
I found several people who, after they till their plot of land for their garden, lay down cardboard or newspaper. Huh? I’ve never heard of this. But, they claim it kept the weeds down and as the cardboard or newspaper decay, they help fertilize the soil for the following year.
Others said they lay mulch or grass clippings before planting their garden as it helps keeps weeds to a minimum. Also, this nourishes the ground as it decays as well.
I thought, why not try this? After all, we had TONS of newspaper we usually give to the recycling. Also, since I was cutting about 5 acres of grass, I’d have grass clippings coming out my ears to use.
So, I tilled the plot of land…with the GAS TILLER….leveled the dirt, then mom and I and staked out where we wanted to plant the seeds. We didn’t plant anything major, just tomatoes, zucchini, green beans and various lettuce.
We planted what we needed to, then laid down newspaper about 4 layers thick. I had mowed the lawn the previous day and had a TON of grass clippings, so we laid the clippings down as well, extra thick. Hey, go big or go home, right?
The only thing we could do at that time was wait. So, every day I would check the garden and see if weeds came up.
One week went by, no weeds.
Two, three weeks went by, no weeds.
A month, no weeds!
I was ecstatic! After a month, I had garden plants coming up and NO WEEDS! Finally, I could start to enjoy gardening!
Now, I could concentrate on growing the garden, not fighting weeds! I thought why didn’t dad ever do this? He either didn’t know about it, or he just enjoyed pulling weeds.
Regardless, I found a way to do have a garden and NOT HAVE WEEDS!
The following year, mom and I did the same thing and again, weed free!
Well, occasionally there would be a weed or two in the middle of the lettuce, but that was fine, I could handle that part. But now I didn’t have to spend hours pulling weeds all summer long!
Hey, you may already know this trick, I didn’t. So, I want everyone who dislikes pulling weeds out of your garden as much as I do to read this and, hopefully, get your garden weed free and enjoy gardening, not weed pulling!
I hope you enjoyed my little garden journey, feel free to let me know yours!
If you want to read more of my stories, I linked to a few below. I usually write about Health and Fitness, Lifestyle, and Family. I look forward to reading your comments.
