Weeding Your Plants and Vegetables

Every vegetable gardener aspires to have a beautiful and weed-free vegetable plot, patch, or garden. Why weed-free? It's because weeds bring about harm to your plants and vegetables. They compete with your plants for nutrients, water and sunlight, which will lead to less desirable produce of your veggies. Weeds also invite pests and diseases and left unchecked, they will thrive and multiply until they have the space designed for your plants and vegetables.

What are Weeds?
Weeds are simply plants that are not wanted - or at least not wanted where they’re growing. While weeds are undesirable in the garden, they serve many useful purposes elsewhere. They cover bare ground and prevent erosion, for example. Weeds also provide food and shelter for birds and beneficial insects. If space permits, it’s a good idea to leave a “wild” spot in your garden – not too close to the vegetable garden - where weeds are unwelcome.

Preventing Weeds
If you turn over soil in the garden, within days you’ll have weeds growing. Weed seeds can remain dormant in the soil for years. Once brought to the surface, with a little water and sunlight, they’ll grow. Therefore, the first step in weed prevention is to disturb the soil as little as possible. Be sure to destroy weeds before they flower and go to seed, which will multiply your problem, especially if weeds are added to the compost pile at this stage.

When and How to Weed
Weed before planting and when seedlings first emerge, to get them off to a good start. If you keep weeds in check for the first month after your seeds sprout, your plants will be large enough to compete with weeds that come up later. After that, weed as often as needed to prevent weeds from taking hold. Be sure to discard pulled weeds: left in the garden, they may take root again, especially in wet weather.

Types of Weeds
Weeds can be annuals or perennials. Annuals complete their growth cycle in one season and don’t have deep roots. Annual weeds can be controlled as long as they are destroyed before they flower and produce seed. Perennials can be much harder to remove and may have large taproots, rhizomes or runners that are much more difficult to eradicate. Even a small piece of root remaining after a perennial weed is pulled may produce a new plant.

Little but careful attention to weeds and the weeding method will go a long way towards making your vegetable garden weed-free and more productive.