5 Steps to Help You Win the Battle Against Weeds in Your Garden

You don’t have to surrender your garden to weeds this year. But, you cannot wait until you are ready to send up the white flag to wage war! Consider these five steps in preparing your weed control action plan.
 

• Learn the difference between perennial weeds and annual weeds in the garden*.

Annual weeds are seasonal. These are weeds that produce seeds that germinate during the warm season (spring and summer) or cool season (fall and winter) months.

Perennial weeds are plants that persist for more than one or two seasons, competing with crops for moisture and nutrients (i.e. nutsedge, nutgrass or bermudagrass). These weeds have a dormant or resting period.
 

• A weed identification publication will help in identifying weeds.

 
• Learn which herbicides are labeled for vegetable crops and how to use them.

Preemergence herbicideS, such as treflan (Preen and others) or dacthal (DCPA), kill many annual weeds as they germinate and are labeled for use with some vegetable crops. Preemergence herbicides should be used on the soil immediately after the garden is planted. Read the product label for a list of this information.

Non-selective herbicides, such as glyphosate (Roundup and others), can be used to kill perennial weeds. Spray when weeds begin actively growing, but before you begin preparing the garden. Some noxious weeds have many methods of survival so this may be an ongoing battle after every gardening season for many years. But, persistence does pay off!

• Become familiar with the best mulches for the vegetable garden. Mulching is still one of the best methods of shading soil from sunlight and reducing weed seed germination. Organic mulches are the best choices for the vegetable garden. Choose mulch that will easily decompose at the end of a season, such as leaves, wheat straw or a few pages of newspaper. Pine needles are waxy and decompose more slowly. You may want to remove pine straw at the end of a crop and use it for more than one season.

• Timing is important – know when to mulch! Don’t wait until weeds are established and growing. Established weeds will thrive under mulch alongside your crops. Hoe or till to remove weeds around crops a few weeks before putting down mulch. This allows sunlight to warm cold soils and give crops a faster start on the growing season.

• Forget about black plastic for weed control. Black plastic is not recommended for home gardens. Commercial growers use black plastic in the field for several reasons – one primary reason is to heat soil temperatures to get a jump on the growing season. Black plastic provides some weed control, but growers have drip irrigation systems and know how to use plastic to their advantage.