Anyone who has ever dabbled in gardening has dealt with weeds at some point. Often, it feels as though preventing and controlling weeds is more work than tending to your actual plants. Weeds are not only highly prevalent, but they can also be hard to get rid of and can cause quite the headache. Below are some tips for managing the weeds in your garden.
Weed Prevention Tips
- Light is the enemy! Do not disturb the soil more than necessary. Many weed seeds lie dormant a couple of inches beneath the surface. All they are waiting for is a little sunlight. Disturb the soil, and you run the risk of exposing these seeds, which could then begin to grow.
- Mulch is your friend! As we have learned, weed seeds and sunlight are a bad combo. Smother the seeds even more with organic or synthetic mulches to block that light!
- Tightly packed gardens stunt weed growth. When your plants grow closely together, their leaves shadow the dirt beneath them and act as another barrier preventing light from reaching the weed seeds.
- Pre-emergent herbicides. The idea of spraying down your garden with chemicals seems quite daunting. However, these types of herbicides help prevent weed growth without harming your plants or grass.
- Be stingy with your water. Using a drip irrigation system around your plants ensures that only the plants are receiving the water they need rather than the whole plot. While these weed seeds can still receive water from rain, they are not guaranteed the same water supply as your other plants. This in combination with a lack of light will help prevent or at the very least stunt weed growth.
Weed Control Tips
- Lay off the fertilizer. While some fertilizer is needed to ensure your plants and grass won’t die, an overabundance may just be feeding the very weeds you are trying to kill.
- Get your hands dirty, and pull those weeds! Hand pulling is still the best method for permanently getting rid of weeds. This method is most effective when the number of weeds and the space are small and manageable.
- Know when to pull the weeds. It is beneficial to pull certain weeds, such as perennial weeds, early on. You want to pull these weeds before they have the opportunity to grow deep roots or before they flower and seed. It is also easier to pull weeds when the soil is moist.
- Fill the areas you pulled weeds from with lawn seed or other plant seeds. This will prevent weed seeds from attempting to grow in that spot again.
- Use herbicides to kill already existing weeds. These herbicides can be quite tricky to get right as the amount is very important so that you don’t damage surrounding vegetation. Be sure to read all instructions very carefully in order to avoid any unintended damage.
These are just some ways you can prevent or handle weed growth in your lawns and gardens. Weeds can be quite stubborn and tricky to deal with, but following these tips can help you control weeds and teach you how to better prevent them in the future. 
Katerin Rodriguez
Home & Yard Magazine
