When you tell someone that you’re growing an organic garden or farm, one of the first questions they ask is “how do you control weeds?”
Most people are brought up on the poisonous culture of using deadly chemicals whenever they spot a weed (not helped by lack of government regulation and misleading marketing by chemical companies). I don’t need to tell you about the damage this has caused the planet – that’s why we are organic gardeners stay right away from such products.
Despite preconceptions, controlling weeds in a healthy organic garden is not that hard. I’ve gathered some thoughts and ideas on this page that I hope you will find helpful!
What if you do nothing?
Some people just don’t have time to control weeds. And believe it or not, it doesn’t make a huge difference. Unless your garden is absolutely over-run with weeds which have over taken your crops, then you might be surprised to find that some weeds can have some slight benefits! This include helping to protect the soil. Naturally though, most of us believe weeds are unsightly and that they steal nutrients from the plants – which is also true.
Manual Removal
Depending upon the size of your garden you might have the option of removing all weeds simply by picking them out of the ground by hand. You might pay your child some pocket money to do this job, or simply spend an hour per day doing it yourself – it’s a great excuse to get out in the sunshine. If this isn’t your thing though (or if you have a much larger plot), there are other options.
Organic Weed Management
You can opt to purchase organic weed killer and controller from an organic gardening store, or you can choose to make your own.
Some things that have shown to work for some people (note that they might not work on ALL weeds), include:
Vinegar
The best vinegar to use is not the regular grocery store variety (it is too weak at only 5% acetic acid concentration), but one with at least 20% acetic acid. You can achieve this percentage by distilling or freeze evaporation or by purchasing special supplies of 20% vinegar made especially for garden use.
Take note though: vinegar will kill anything it is sprayed on, so be careful ONLY to apply it directly on to the weeds, and not to your vegetables or other plants! Some people like to use a small brush to paint the vinegar on to the weed, to ensure no damage is caused to other plants or grass.
I will be adding more DIY organic weed control ideas here soon, but if you can’t wait for that, check out this link which has some more excellent ideas.
Mulching
There are measures you can take to help prevent weeds from occurring at all. This includes mulching, which stops weeds from growing by blocking out light. You can use regular mulch on small plots, but for larger areas sheet mulch is much more convenient and effective.
What Not to Use
It goes without saying that organic gardeners and farmers simply don’t use chemical based herbicides and pesticides or any other form of pest control that is unnatural. So that means staying away from products like “Roundup” from the destructive company Monsanto (search the web and Facebook and learn about why Monsanto is one of the most unethical corporations on the planet and why you should NEVER use any their products).
I hope this has given you some ideas of ways to undertake organic weeding without damaging your plants or the environment – or your health!
