Weeds. You either love them – no sarcasm here, that would be me – or hate them. I’ll start off by saying that if you take care of your garden weeds in June, you’ll have a much better time of it in July and August.
Just like flowers, weeds can be annuals, perennial or biennials. Annual weeds generally have a fibrous root system which spreads just beneath the soil surface, unlike the fleshy tap roots of the perennial types. No matter the type of weed, it is important to remove them before they go to seed. Most annual weeds can be easily pulled or sliced off just below the soil surface with a hoe. Do not chop at the soil with your hoe or you will bring more weed seeds to the surface that will germinate.
There is no reason to hate weeds. For starters, they are chock full of nutrition. Many of them have long roots that are able to mine nutrients from deep in the soil where typical garden plant roots do not reach. These nutrients are then embodied in the above ground parts of the plant as well as the roots.
That nutrition shouldn’t go to waste. Many weeds from your lawn and garden are edible, including dandelion, chickweed, burdock, stinging nettle, violets, lamb’s quarters and purslane. Make sure to positively identify any wild plant, before you consume it. Do not eat plants that have been treated with any kind of chemical pesticide or are near an area that has been treated. If you don’t intend to eat the weeds, all you really have to know for sure before tackling a weeding job is “weed” or “not-weed.”
If you choose not to eat your weeds, the nutrition they hold can still be of benefit to you. Composting the weeds, either in a compost bin, a hole dug in the garden or just by laying them atop the soil to decompose in place ensures that the nutrition will return to the soil it was taken from.
Except for weeds that should be removed from garden beds because they have gone to seed or others that will re-root if left atop the soil, purslane for example, they will decompose in short order. Weeds should be turned root side up if laid atop the soil because any weed can be crafty and re-root if given the right conditions.
If you’ve let the weeding chore go undone for too long and have a large number of weeds, you are in luck because now you’ve got free mulch. Pull the weeds, making sure to get the roots, and lay them on the garden soil between plants or along a fence line to shade the soil and prevent other weeds from germinating. The layer of pulled weeds also gives you a clean place to walk between plants. Again, don’t do this with weeds that have gone to seed or you’ll inadvertently plant more weeds.
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