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Identifying and Managing Weeds in Your Organic Garden

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Everyone loves a thriving, beautiful organic garden. However, even the most skilled gardeners have to battle with weeds to maintain the health of their plants. Out-of control weeds dominate space, water and soil nutrients in the garden, essentially suffocating the plants you intend to grow. Learning to identify which weeds require which treatments is the first step toward keeping your organic garden healthy and attractive.

Grassy weeds, which resemble clusters of overgrown, uneven patches of grass, include nutsage, crabgrass, foxtail and annual bluegrass. The gardener can effectively kill grassy weeds with tactics such as mulching, in which one covers the soil with several sheets of newspaper and layers wheat straw, grass clippings or chopped leaves on top. However, reducing the reseeding of grassy weeds is the most effective way to eliminate them from your garden. To do this, one must prune weeds at their base when they reach seed-bearing age. Thus, new generations of weeds will not reproduce in the garden.

Broadleaf weeds have large, wide leaves and occasionally flowers. These include dandelions, horsetails, white clovers and English daisies. Ridding your garden of these weeds is simple: you just have to pull them out. Be sure to remove the entire root from the soil, otherwise the weed could grow back. Doing so while the soil is wet will make this process easier. Let weeds dry in the sun for several hours in order to dehydrate their seeds. This will prevent future reproduction after composting the weeds and using them as fertilizer.

Finally, woody and vining weeds include morning glory, poison ivy, bindweed and wild buckwheat. Organic herbicides, which use none of the toxic, synthetic chemicals found in other herbicides and pesticides, will successfully remove these unwanted weeds from your garden. Products containing clove oil and/or acetic acid will be effective, as will soap-based herbicides, which dehydrate the plants they contact. Organic herbicides work best in warm, still weather, when the wind won’t blow chemicals onto the wrong plant. Young woody and vining weeds will have the strongest reaction to herbicides, while deep-rooted perennials may require more attention.

Learning to identify and manage the weeds in your organic garden will keep your plants healthy and the garden beautiful. You may even teach someone else your newfound skills!

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