Garden thread

[21hens-incharge]

Weeds are really bad here too. Another reason I’ve made a smaller garden. I keep up with them pretty good until it gets unbearably hot then they get away from me. Every year I vow to do better. We shall see...

we have "battle bind weed" here every summer....all summer. I feel your pain.

 

[ChocolateMouse]

Weeds are always a battle right? I've found a few things effective for me.

Tilling twice in the spring as soon as the soil can be worked the first time in a spring (usually in VERY early March) which will bring the weed seeds to the surface, loosen and warm the soil and allow them to sprout. Then I till again to mix them back in and destroy the weeds when it's time to plant up to a week later.
In the time in between the two tilling I try to lay cardboard or newspaper down over the beds to help smother the weeds. The seeds get no sun, only water, so the seedlings become long and stringy and delicate making the second tilling very easy and denying them a healthy root stock.
Then I try to keep the cardboard down until it's time to plant in any given space and give a quick rake with the garden rake right before planting to rip up any slower seedlings.
I plant with the intention of taking up as much space as possible with the plants I have. This means nurse cropping with fast veggies like radish, companion planting with peas, interweaving short and tall crops to cover more of the ground with shade. This has a dramatic effect on how much the seeds can actually take off. It keeps the soil wet, cool and shady. Weeds struggle.
I plant in rows when I can. This isn't totally often because I use a somewhat squarefoot and intensive planting method but if it can happen within reason I do it. This makes weeding between the rows at random intervals with a cursory swipe of a 3 or 5 tine hand cultivator easier.
I mulch deeply with whatever I can. Pulled weeds, straw, aged wood chips, leaves, torn cardboard. Even a light mulching can stop weed seeds from sprouting.
I welcome certain weeds. The shiso that grows wild in my garden each year is edible and would be easy to remove in 1-2 seasons with nothing but aggressive pulling. Dandelions and plantago are edible and just don't spread like other weeds do. Sometimes in a butterfly weed, goldenrod, or aster sneaks into a corner where it isn't actively disturbing other plants I let it be and think about the pollinators it could attract.

The majority of this stuff is pretty passive and bulk work so it can be done with less effort across all the beds. And I see substantially noticeable differences with each of these steps. But it's never enough. There's so many weeds.

How to you all try to manage weeds?

 

[rosemarythyme]

How to you all try to manage weeds?

My actual gardening space isn't that huge (five 4x8s, one 4x4, three long shade flower beds, some pots) so I can selectively weed by hand. I till through the vegetable garden beds before planting to work in compost, so by the time that's done that's pretty much weed free and ready for seeding/starts.

If we're talking the whole lot (4 acres) then it's a losing battle to try and nitpick over it, so I just try to cut back as much of the bramble as possible and mow over low growing stuff. I also plant things like strawberries as edible ground cover to help smother out some weeds, as I have a large "flower island" across from the front door that I don't really want to put too much work into, but still want it to look decent.

 

[21hens-incharge]

I try to manage weeds mostly with back breaking work.
Hand pull anything near the plants and a good sharp weeder hoe.
I end up always having to pick bind weed off the fences.
We have a utility access alley behind us that is actually very wide. The city mows it twice a season. I mow behind my property but others do not. That means there are lots of weeds that come to visit us.

 

[Melodychick]

I hand pull weeds that are in the beds and mow in between and around the beds. I also let the chickens come in in between crops. since I moved the garden to a smaller area, I need to use a push mower because the riding mower won’t fit. Last year it broke and with all the rain and heat, the weeds got so big I had to go in and chop them down in the fall. I’ll get a new mower this year and try to keep up

 

[FT Chickens]

I hand pulled weeds and ran tiller between the rows. My ordeal was the weeds would come up before my veggies making it difficult. They would also come up in the rows, when I pulled the weeds my veggie plants would come out also. If I missed a few days it was over.

 

[Farmdog267]

That does suck about the bug issues @Melodychick.
And yes, my garden is VERY big. You can see how big here (minus some strawberries and a very large blackberry cane stand, if you include those it's about 500sqft of plantable ground, not counting pathways);
View attachment 2004318

Square footage is clearly marked even. This is the Final Layout™ barring any surprises. (Which means it'll be rehashed like six more times as things go wrong.)There's a tiny version of the last garden we planted for the purpose of tracking plant rotation. In the program I use there's a key telling me what each letter is if I don't already know from inference. (For example, it's pretty obvious the the big red Ts are Tomatoes, cT cherry tomato, the Ms are melons, the Z zucchini, etc.)


For seed starting anything that gets started indoors gets 1.5-2Xs the number of plants listed here started. Anything extra I have I sell, trade or keep as backups in case of damage from weather and animals.

The next two steps; clean my seed starting shelves and organize my seed lists by starting dates, direct sow dates, then note transplant dates and put all of that information in my phone calendar as appointments so I can be on top of what has to happen when.

Whew!
That was a lot of work in the last 24 hours.

What program are you using to assist with the layout? I was looking at the program the old farmers almanac sells but I'm not sure about it. Your layout looks very well thought out!

 

[ChocolateMouse]

What program are you using to assist with the layout? I was looking at the program the old farmers almanac sells but I'm not sure about it. Your layout looks very well thought out!

I actually just use a free open source photoshop replacement called GIMP (GNU image manipulation program).

When you use GIMP (or PS or any good art program with layers) it has a few nifty features making it very practical for garden planning. First is an in-image coordinates system. You hover your mouse over something at it tells you which pixel it is on an X-Y axis. Which makes it easy to arbitrarily designate, say, 50 pixels per ft and use a line tool to draw it out to exactly how big your garden bed is by just moving from say 100pixels on the image to 200 pixels for a 2 ft wide bed.

It has an automatic grid overlay you can configure to however big you like (like the arbitrary 50px per square foot) and then just turn it off and on without having to manually draw a grid or worry about worrying the grid might get drawn over or getting in the way.

You can make layers that are semi-transparent to represent shade, water levels or other important areas for your garden. When you add color or notes to these layers it doesn't effect the other layers and they can be turned off and on at will or change how transparent they are without deleting them or changing them permanently.

The layers system also means you can label each layer cleanly and when you click on that layer it highlights on the image with a box outline. So when you type H H H in yellow for your habaneros on 3 square feet you can drag it to exactly where you want and label the layer "habaneros". Then when you wanna know where your habaneros are going you click on the habaneros layer and it highlights a box around the letters so you can see where they are in your garden. You can move it to any location in the garden without effecting the actual image of the beds underneath.

The downside is there's a learning curve. When you open a program like GIMP or PS it's immediately confusing if you're not already familiar with art programs. There's tutorials online to show you basic functionality but it's not as simple as point at the pumpkin and drag it to where you want it.
For example the BIG transparent Z with zz inside that I use to represent a patch of two zucchini plants and the space they will take up; I had to make that myself. But now that it's made I can re-use it infinitely and copy it whenever I need. On the other hand the options are literally infinite and extremely diverse and you can do literally anything with it by just adjusting your layers. Wanna note where one problem weed grows more than others? You can do that. Wanna put a note where trellises are? Make a label named "trellis", pick a color, draw a line or blob or grid where the trellis is. Or just make a layer named "trellis" and crop it to the area your trellises are and only write trellised plants on that layer. Literally whatever you want and once you make something (like the bed base, or a template for a plant) it's made and you can just reuse it.

 

[Farmdog267]

Interesting. I know nothing about photo shop so this method won't be beneficial for me. Your pictures look awesome though! Great job. I hope I t is as beneficial as it seems to be.

 

[ChocolateMouse]

Interesting. I know nothing about photo shop so this method won't be beneficial for me. Your pictures look awesome though! Great job. I hope I t is as beneficial as it seems to be.

Well, like I said there's tutorials online. It's very learnable, just does require effort to learn.

Basically the program works like a stack of clear paper you can write on with sharpies. Or maybe like a felt or cork board. You use one big one to draw your garden beds, then another clear sheet to start writing veggies on. Then another for shade. etcetc.

Of course, once you've learned it you have a new life skill too. It might be worth looking into.