Weeding Techniques

[ducks4you]

I haven't broken MY tiller, but I did break a cheapo chainsaw.

 

[ducks4you]

Weeding is also getting rid of trash invasive trees, like Tree of Paradise, or that maple growing right under your fence!!
I have figured out that if you dig down about 4 inches, saw the sapling off under the soil level, and stuff in cardboard to fill the hole.
NO herbicides needed, and the cardboard both starves it of sunlight and decomposes.
I have done this many times. Just FYI...

 

[Dahlia]

My fave weeding technique is getting kids to do it.

My favorite weeding technique other than finding someone else to do it is weeding while tanning in a lawn chair! I set up my last garden in such a way that I could position my lawn chair and weed the garden while laying out tanning! That was the best looking garden we ever had! I spent lots of time laying out in the sun and that equaled no weeds in my garden! It was amazing and I highly recommend it!

 

[Marie2020]

My favorite weeding technique other than finding someone else to do it is weeding while tanning in a lawn chair! I set up my last garden in such a way that I could position my lawn chair and weed the garden while laying out tanning! That was the best looking garden we ever had! I spent lots of time laying out in the sun and that equaled no weeds in my garden! It was amazing and I highly recommend it!

Brilliant

 

[ducks4you]

After a heavy rain is a Great time to weed, and early Spring is the best time to weed.
You need:
1) spade/shovel--TO DIG OUT DEEP ROOTS
2) hand rake
3) gardening seat and/or kneeling pad
4) cardboard and a razor--to shove down in the hole of saplings that you cut off below ground level, about 4 inches deep. If you put enough cardboard down the hole they Won't grow back
5) wheelbarrow
and
6) bucket
***Some weeds, like the runners for bindweed should go Straight into the trash. Any pieces will regrow in the lawn.
They go into the bucket.
***Some weeds will Also regrow if you leave them in the lawn, but they can be burned (at my place.)
They collect in the wheelbarrow to dry out and be burned.
***All the other weeds can be tossed into the lawn and become lawn fertilizer.
Any other collection methods are a waste of time.
I.M.H.O.

 

[Shades-of-Oregon]

@flowerbug In my case after having aged up a bit. I just ignore the weeds until July I’m usually to busy dealing with the pastures. Most weeds die out by then others I spot spray or use hedger to wack down before they flower and set seed.

All the garden beds are built up beds with topsoil and mushroom compost. Many … many truck loads . Which makes weed pulling a breeze with soft soil. I pack the weeds pulled in on cardboard & let them dry and shrink a few days then they are light as a feather to lift out with pitch fork and toss on the lawn/ pasture or drag over on cardboard to a area to mulch. One of my favorite tools is my mulcher mower. Then I mulch the weeds and that’s the end of weeds also a blower comes in handy for getting debrie in place and out of difficult places for the mower.

The same technique for end of season clean up. I have gotten lazy in my old age but it’s for a good reason. Saving joints and back ‘ shoulder etc. issues as well as using mindfulness to pre plan garden tasks without totaling out my old joints and what few muscles I have left. I’ve learned to accept my limitations and treat myself accordingly.

 

[flowerbug]

...I’ve learned to accept my limitations and treat myself accordingly.

oh certainly agree with you on those points. just yesterday when mowing i encouraged Mom to drop a handful of weeds in front of me as i was moving the mower so i could chew them up into the lawn. much better than wasting them (and the walk back to the weed pile). certain grasses though i do not want to run over and chop up into even more pieces that will grow in the lawn again (quack grass and a certain kind of grass that is very hard to pull out even if it grows in a clump and doesn't send out stolons).

 

[Shades-of-Oregon]

@flowerbug does your mower close at the bottom to keep the mulch from flying out several feet. and have two blades. That is how my mulcher mower literally grinds things so small nothing has grown from the mulching.

 

[flowerbug]

@flowerbug does your mower close at the bottom to keep the mulch from flying out several feet. and have two blades. That is how my mulcher mower literally grinds things so small nothing has grown from the mulching.

yes, it's been doing that for over 20 years. we've never fertilized the lawn areas that i regularly mow, they grow just fine. just have to keep them regularly mowed and once in a while i do find things to weed out of them like Creeping Charlie (i eradicated an invasion of that after two years of dedicated efforts of an hour or two a week or so). i've also headed off a horse tail invasion that almost took over the north garden and bedstraw invasion which i'm thinking i may have gotten most of it by now, the poison ivy is going to be a regular task the rest of my life as is also likely the wild grape vines and purslanes and spurges and speedwells. let alone the quack grass and others (mints, crab grasses, thistles, ...). as a kid i never imagined i'd spend any time at all learning much about the plants in the lawn, only a few caught my interest (dandelions and chickory). alfalfa and birdsfoot trefoil didn't come about as an interest until much later.

some plant seeds do not get destroyed by a mulching mower.

 

[digitS']

I'm pleased that you comment on various types of weeds on TEG, FlowerBug.

It isn't that I  love seeing them each year but, I do have to have an interest in them because my garden partners (wanted plants) should not be in competition with them. One of my jobs is to help the partners ... I guess that is my ONLY job as a gardener .

So, I have to know something about the weeds, think about their life cycles – for example, how quickly will they grow, bloom and set seeds? Do they have rhizomes? Experience but names help with categorizing and remembering characteristics.

There are fewer species to deal with in 2024 without the distant garden and its "field weeds" from having been a hay field and its proximity to corn and fallow ground. A few different weeds here at home and, really, just as problematic by the square foot.

Steve