To weed or not to weed?!

[veggiechicken]

veggiechicken - I will go and pull one up now and see if they are connected or not!

There may be a problem! Its over 24 hours since Starmist went out to pull one up and she hasn't returned

[Two_Sheds]

I have so many of them ...

You'll drive yourself nuts trying to pull out all the baby weeds all the time. My lotty neighbour is up there all day every day, pulling out every little weed as it appears. He's never on top of it, it's pointless.


Weeds are only really a problem when they're seeding: so never let them set seed.

Other times, they make compete with your plants for nutrients & water, but then again they also shade the soil, keeping moisture in the ground, and their roots help to knit the soil layers together, preventing erosion.
Weeds are also full of the nutrients that other plants (your veggies) need.


I treat weeds as green manures: I let them grow* until they're really pretty big (you get fewer weeds overall, because the shade from the big ones stops others from germinating), then I pull them up, chop them a bit, and drop them on the ground as a mulch. It's a super-quick way to make compost, and it really improves the soil very quickly.

Nature abhors a bare patch of soil: she will quickly cover it in weeds.

You may need to adjust your expectations: if you like to see bare brown soil with a few neat lines of veg, then switching to a more natural method of growing is going to be a bit of a culture shock. It takes many more hours of work to get the bare soil/straight lines plot. I'd rather spend those hours reading a book in my hammock, than on my hands & knees pulling up every tiny weed.


* except the perennial nasties eg. bindweed, couch grass, perennial nettle, horsetail. I don't let those grow at all, they get dug out & rotted down in black sacks.