Tired of friends/neighbors who are newbies to gardening telling you How to garden?

[Zeedman]

if you are mowing before seeds are set then you've avoided a lot of future weeds.

Only if using a bagger - and even then, only if the bagger is working properly. My push mower has a lever that switches between mulching and bagging, by either opening or closing the door to the bagger. Unfortunately for me (and probably for this year's garden) I didn't check to see if the door actually opened - and it was stuck shut! So until I discovered that (when the bag failed to expand) all I did was to spread the crab grass more effectively. That was mostly around the garden margins; I discovered the problem before I got to the gherkins, which were close to the garden center.

 

[Zeedman]

picture would help because i'm seeing several different kinds too. i mean a stirrup hoe can also be called a push pull hoe so ...

The stirrup hoes that I have pivot & are allegedly push-pull; but I found them to be less effective (and far more strenuous) when pushed.

 

[flowerbug]

The stirrup hoes that I have pivot & are allegedly push-pull; but I found them to be less effective (and far more strenuous) when pushed.

ours doesn't pivot much of any way but it does rattle a bit. i do agree that pushing is not an easy use of it, but it does work so i give them the credit for what they can do in that way. on a very light and easy weed it will work.

 

[ducks4you]

Actually mowing IS a way to get rid of weeds. IF you mow before they go to seed, you can keep them from spreading as well as they can when allowed to grow out of control and spread seeds.
I have too much acreage to maintain and I do most of the weed control, so I have made my peace with dandelions, clover and purslane.
I have had success with planting oats, and I heard that planting oats in the spring over a dug up weedy patch is a way to take that part of the yard back. Oats will grow for you when grass will die out or get eaten by birds from exposure, and you can plant grass on top of it in the Fall. It makes a thick carpet and looks very nice, according to my DD from last year's planting.
If you plant oats in the Fall, it will die back and let you plant grass early Spring by raking it up to make places for the grass seed to fall into.

 

[flowerbug]

Actually mowing IS a way to get rid of weeds. IF you mow before they go to seed, you can keep them from spreading as well as they can when allowed to grow out of control and spread seeds.
I have too much acreage to maintain and I do most of the weed control, so I have made my peace with dandelions, clover and purslane.
I have had success with planting oats, and I heard that planting oats in the spring over a dug up weedy patch is a way to take that part of the yard back. Oats will grow for you when grass will die out or get eaten by birds from exposure, and you can plant grass on top of it in the Fall. It makes a thick carpet and looks very nice, according to my DD from last year's planting.
If you plant oats in the Fall, it will die back and let you plant grass early Spring by raking it up to make places for the grass seed to fall into.

if you use oats as a nursery crop along with your grass seed in the fall to reclaim an area that may help. this would be as a seed extender not as a way to replace the grass seed entirely. i have planted alfalfa and birdsfoot treefoil along with buckwheat as the nursery crop. that worked well too. it has big enough leaves to shade out most weeds but will let the alfalfa and trefoil get established. by the time the frosts came around and took down the buckwheat there were enough other plants going to only require a bit of spot weeding. of course this is going to depend upon your weed pressure and species to begin with. for things like sow thistle i wouldn't even try a cover crop at all until i knew i had most of the sow thistle out of there to begin with. cover crop would not help that much and make it even harder to get out of there the next season (if it was the perennial type that i often have to get rid of here).

oh and if i had grasses growing in dead oats in the fall or spring i'd leave it all alone as the oat thatch will just keep more weeds from having an easy start plus it will feed the worms.