The WoW Style

Gardening and the Nuisance of Weeds

The part of horticulture where you cultivate and grow flowers, fruits, plants, and vegetables, gardening is considered to be extremely healthy for whoever likes to practice this agricultural preparation activity. Not only does the person get plenty of vitamin D, but it also boosts your mood, is an enjoyable aerobic exercise, and can even help fight back dementia.

People involve themselves in gardening for a variety of reasons such as growing food, obtain materials from the produce, and definitely to decorate their homes and dwellings. Many of the plants grown in gardens are often used for ornaments and making fancy items.

However, one of the greatest nuisances to your gardens can be weeds. Weeds are considered undesirable as they can be quite aggressive when it comes to growth. Many weeds can be invasive at times since they often grow outside their native habitat, or in short where they are not wanted.

According to a study conducted at Environment.gov.au that weeds can cost up to $1.5 billion a year for Australian farmers as well as $2.5 billion every year as a loss to agricultural production. In this post, we would like to offer you some advice as to how you can deal with this annoyance of weeds. So let’s take a quick look at each one of them.

Best Ways to Eliminate Weeds

• Mulch can Help You Fight Weeds

The problem with weeds growing in your garden is that even if you pull them out, sometime later, they would simply remerge again. However, there is a practical remedy for them, and it comes directly in the form of a natural predator. The answer is Mulch. This layer of material is usually made up of pf decaying leaves, barks, and even compost.

Most people use a mulch to conserve soil moisture and improve fertility, as well as the health of the soil. However, Mulch can also be used in a 2-3 inch layer, enough to keep most weed seeds from growing. Mulch helps you block sunlight, and you can even use pebbles and small stones as your own compost of Mulch. Just replenish your layer of Mulch every year and maintain that 2-3 inch layer.

• Keep Sleeping Seeds Undisturbed

When the soil is fertile, every plant is just ready to grow, unfortunately, so are weeds. However, it is important to understand that weeds need sunlight to grow. Therefore, for their germination to occur, only the top two inches of your soil gets enough light to trigger their growth.

Therefore if you keep your soil undisturbed and don’t dig unnecessarily, there is a high probability that dormant weed seeds wouldn’t reach near the surface, and they will remain under that threshold area where they can remain without bothering you. So every time you open a patch in the garden, you need to realize that apart from the plants you desire to grow, you are also giving a chance for sleeping weed seeds to emerge near the surface and hog all that sunlight.

• Let There Be No Gaps

If you keep your gardens tightly packed, there is a good chance that nearby plants will help shade the soil. These closed spaces offer you an excellent opportunity to choke out any emerging weeds. Instead of scattering your plants, consider growing them in friendly patches. Weeds love to grow in open spaces where they can get the maximum sunlight for themselves.

You should follow guidelines for each plant that you wish to grow and insert them at the closest spacing recommendation. This can also help you save considerable space in your garden and plant your crops in a more organized and planned manner.

• Water Only the Plants You Want

Water is life, astrologist, and those who study the cosmos know for a fact that where there is water, there is life. A prime reason why we haven’t discovered aliens living in our solar system as the nearest planets to ours don’t have water.

However, when it comes to watering your plants, it is important to know that weed seeds also need water to grow. So cultivating with caution is highly advised. We do not see the dormant weed seeds lying underground. A drought in your garden where you do not want to grow plants also helps you stop weeds and their growth. Drip and soaker hoses are ideal in this situation.

• Corn Gluten Meal for Germination

A byproduct of maize starch, corn gluten meal is rich in protein and is considered a great feed containing over 65% of crude protein that can be used for energy and pigments for fish and livestock. But how does this help us? Actually, corn gluten meal is a pre-emergent herbicide and can only be used before the emergence of weed in your gardens.

They can stop the germination of weeds and thus make them shrivel and die. However, it is important to know that corn gluten meal should never be used if the weed has already emerged in your garden as then it will, in fact, fertilize them and help in making them grown instead.

• Vinegar, the Reaper of Plant Life

Vinegar comes with flavoring, and it is the aqueous solution of acetic acid, it can also be made naturally through the fermentation of ethanol alcohol. Vinegar has many types, and it is easily available in the market. However, vinegar is also the death reaper of plant life since it can kill off weeds permanently.

However, it must be used with caution as it can also kill off many common plants. Plus, you need to make sure that concentrations are not high enough as vinegar has been known to cause environmental damage as well in concentrations higher than 20-30%.

• Soap, Chemical Agent 006 and a Half

Meet the secret agent soap that can help you in fighting back weeds. While soap can definitely help you kill germs, for weeds, it acts as a proactive deterrent. Soap can help you to kill off weeds as it can allow salt and vinegar to stick to plant’s leaves.

As any secret agent in popular fiction, soap needs gadgets to complete its mission. Equip your one tablespoon of dish soap with a cup of salt and a gallon of vinegar. Mix thoroughly and use a funnel to get the end result into a spray bottle, for best results use a dish that is not antibacterial. Now spray your heart out on a dry and sunny day.

• Vodka, To Suck Them Dry

Here is another item and most probably our last as well that might seem kind of strange but hey what works, works. Vodka ladies and gentlemen are world-famous and quite popular in Poland and Russia. Who knew that just an ounce of this Russian bottled water could potentially rip the soul out of weeds by causing them to dry and wither away?

We saved the most tenacious for the last; it is actually a horrible way to die. However, weeds are trouble makers, but if your heart melts too quickly, then use this as a last option. It works best with liquid dish soap and two cups of water.

Conclusion

Invasive species, if left unattended like weeds, can cause terrible havoc and heavy damages to your gardens and produce. Their invasion results in the change of natural diversity as they disrupt the fine balance you have always aimed for your beloved garden. They are unfriendly for ecological communities and also disturb the soil.

Plus, they also make your native plants lose vital nutrients. Hence being a bit decisive with them shouldn’t be counted as an act of viciousness. We hope the tips mentioned above will offer you enough support to get rid of weeds permanently. Happy gardening, you-all!

Author Bio

Amanda Jerelyn currently works as a Lifestyle Blogger at Crowd Writer, where students can acquire support from professional essay writers to deliver high-quality research for their academic-related written tasks. During her free time, she likes to try out new recipes of favorite cuisines while daydreaming of running her own restaurant someday.