weed control

[pairadice]

I have a lot of weeds in my garden and I need to know the best way of controling them. Do I use an herbicide now or in the spring before planting? How should I apply it etc. I'm not a real experienced gardener and have alot to learn yet.

[jwal10]

Are the weeds dead? Did they go to seed? Clean everything off the garden, burn or compost. Can you plow it now? I would think it is too late to spray. If you can plow it then in the spring work it early to sprout weeds and do about every 2 weeks until planting time, it will kill a lot of weed seeds. Best thing to do is never let weeds go to seed.

[willow_girl]

Cover any bare dirt and keep it covered. If you don't, Nature will cover it for you -- with weeds!

Lots of things will work as a covering -- mulch, leaves, tarps, old carpeting, newspaper, cardboard. Uncover only for planting, and then only the area necessary to sow or set your seeds or plants respectively.

[Paquebot]

At some point in their life, every weed is no more than an inch long. No good excuse for letting it get much bigger than that. Hoe it off just below the surface. If it is an annual, that's the last time you'll see it.

Martin

[geo in mi]

Originally Posted by pairadice

I have a lot of weeds in my garden and I need to know the best way of controling them. Do I use an herbicide now or in the spring before planting? How should I apply it etc. I'm not a real experienced gardener and have alot to learn yet.

First, welcome to the forum. From Traverse City on up northwards, you should have already had some weed killing frosts, so applying herbicide now would just be a waste. But what you have now are dead stems and leaves, etc, plus plenty of weed SEEDS, which you will have to deal with next gardening season---and for many, many more seasons. You can mow or shred the stems and leftover debris, then burn it off and get a few seeds--but the mowing will spread the seeds all over the surface of the soil. Next spring, your tillage to get the ground ready will further spread them INTO the soil layer, plus bring up the seeds that have already been dispersed from all the previous years. So what you have in front of you is a continuing problem--one which you could well have for the next few years... But welcome to gardening. (We all have the same problem.)

Herbicides: obviously, spraying weed killer on growing garden plants will take them out--not desirable. But you do have one option called Preen(corn gluten) which, when spread on the bare soil surface will kill the weed seeds on the surface and for maybe an inch deep. This will give you a start, and from then on, you will have to use a very sharp hoe and/or pull or dig out those in the rows..... Perennial weeds, you will have to dig out or keep chopping off to eventually exhaust their food reserves in the deep roots.

You can also mulch--either before or after the garden plants are growing. This is done with all the ways mentioned, cardboard, straw, leaves, old carpeting, black plastic. etc, etc, whichever way suits your needs and resources.

You can also till several times in the spring, each time killing off the weeds that have germinated.

There is no silver bullet, good luck. Preen Vegetable Garden Weed Preventer | Preen.com

geo

[Old Swampgirl]

Pull them all up & try to get the roots too. Then use a heavy mulch. I like oak leaves & then sometimes cover this with hay.

[sammyd]

here are a couple of my favorite weed controllers

[geo in mi]

Originally Posted by sammyd

here are a couple of my favorite weed controllers

You missed one.......

geo

[pairadice]

Thanks everyone for your posts. I suspected there was no easy fix. I will work at it!