How to clear the vegetable garden full of weeds
I know, the last thing you want to think about when you’re trying to do some serious gardening is another landscaping project. However, clearing your garden of weeds is one thing that really needs to be done. In a vegetable garden, there are some troublesome weeds that you really need to get rid of before they spread their seeds and create an abundance of weeds for next year.
How to clear vegetable garden full of weeds
Vegetable gardening is not just about planting and watering the plants. If a vegetable garden truly comes to life, it is because of constant weeding, pruning, mulching, and interspersing flowers among the herbs. It is also important to remove mature plants that have produced all their fruits. All these activities ensure that your vegetable garden does not turn into a maze of all, overly green weeds. But the question here is how to clear or prevent weeds from growing in your garden.
Mulch over them
Mulching over weeds that have already appeared in your vegetable garden is always the best solution when you can’t pull them up before they go to seed. Evergreen weeds like dandelion and plantain that appear early in the season are ones you might want to remove the whole leaf and all by hand.
The worst feeling when weeds take over your vegetable garden is feeling helpless and not knowing what to do. You’ll feel like you’ve been overtaken by a weed army and there is no way out of the mess. If you want to clear your vegetable garden of weeds, mulch is one of the easiest ways to do this. Mulching over weeds can make the whole garden dirty so in deep house cleaning this cleaning process is very important.
Keep your garden edges trimmed
Keeping the edges around your vegetable garden trimmed can help keep your garden free from weeds. Weeds often grow from seeds blown in from surrounding areas, so keeping the edges of your garden trimmed and free of debris will help reduce weeds. This allows you to focus on weeding the growing area rather than the entire garden.
A quick trim of the edge with clippers or a weed-wacker each week should do the trick. As a bonus, you’ll also improve airflow and sunlight exposure for your plants!
Adopt preventive measures
Before you start pulling weeds, use some kind of barrier to prevent new ones from popping up. Plastic sheeting is a cheap and easy solution to this problem. It helps keep out water and sunlight, which can kill weeds. Simply lay the plastic over the garden area. Avoid using sheets that have been chemically treated since they may inhibit seed germination. For a more permanent barrier, line the garden with plywood and add a layer of topsoil on top. Once the weeds are gone, you can remove these barriers and let the soil return to its natural state.
Some DIY techniques
There are a number of ways to clear the vegetable garden of weeds. One way is to use the method that works best for you, depending on the size of your garden. If you plan on clearing weeds from a small area, there are some simple things you can do to get rid of unwanted plants.
Filling in the garden bed with newspapers and covering them with layers of mulch will smother weeds and keep them from growing. This method works well for small areas that won’t be used for a couple of months because it does take time for the newspaper to break down and the mulch should not be disturbed after it is applied.
Pulling weeds by hand is another good way to remove unwanted plants from soil beds. This method requires a lot of work, but it is one of those DIY methods that can save you money while getting rid of unwanted vegetation. Another option is using a flamethrower to burn off weeds in your vegetable garden. This may seem like an extreme method, but it can be useful when you have large areas that need cleaning up quickly. It also gets rid of any unwanted pests or diseases, so this is an eco-friendly way to eliminate the problem of vegetation. A more natural way to remove weeds from soil beds is using herbicides.
Smothering weeds
The idea behind smothering is that you keep sunlight from reaching weed seeds and young plants. This can be done by covering the soil with newspapers or cardboard, which will decompose over time and kill any new growth that sprouts.
Smothering works well when combined with other control methods (such as tilling or hand pulling) because it allows time for those other controls to take effect before new weeds can germinate. However, it can also be a good stand-alone method, if you’re willing to put in enough time and effort.
Weed blocking fabric
Weed blocking fabric is a heavy-duty synthetic material designed to block sunlight from reaching weed seedlings as they sprout. It can be used alone or in combination with mulch or newspaper; some people even use the fabric instead of newspaper, since the fabric lasts longer and is more durable.
Hire a professional landscaping service
Unfortunately, sometimes the weeds will just win. This can sometimes be due to the type of soil you have or a huge variety of weeds that are existing in your garden. Or you might have lazy neighbors who didn’t bother to thin out their own weeds and seeds spread out across your shared fence. So it is best to simply clear them out and start fresh again in the spring when they have begun to die off naturally. So the ideal solution shall be to hire professionals who have the required expertise to handle the problem in an immaculate manner.