Morning everyone !! I just had to let you know about a new 'trick' I'm trying this year. seems to be working really well so far. Saving me time,money,stress and back and legs aren't keeping me down.
I have a huge vegi garden.Every year it's awful trying to just keep up with the weeds. Finding CLEAN straw around here is impossible,if you can it's outragously priced.I don't use weed killers or pesticides,so it's hand pulling weeds for me !
Here's what I've done. To prepare the beds I simply mowed the wees very close to the ground.Then I placed empty (opened flat) cardboard boxes and empty feed sacks all over the garden. I left opening to the soil where I would plant the vegies and flowers.Garden staples to hold the bags and boxes in place.
I did not tilling this year.Just took a garden fork to the areas where I would be planting. Now in those places I DID hand pull the weeds to the roots.Simply turned the soil about 4-5" deep and planted.Applied the clean straw around the seedlings.
It's working great...Little to no weeds to pull !! Spent little time and money on this. Hope this will help- some of you also !! Happy gardening.
Hugs!!
shee
A new trick
Thanks Just what I needed today. Shirley
That sounds great, Shee. I'm all for less work! I found this thread here at DG yesterday when searching for something completely unrelated: http://davesgarden.com/showthread/94644.html It was in the hosta forum, which I never visit (I've gotta stop by there more often now!)
We're going to do this beneath our fir trees, a problematic, weedy spot we want to use for chairs and a hammock.