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Weeding brings immediate and long-term
rewards
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Hot
weather may not inspire any more gardening activity than plucking a
juicy tomato off the vine, but don't neglect weeding. Untended weeds
become worse troublemakers later.
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Weeds weaken garden plants,
diminishing the show of flowers and the yields of vegetables.
Killing weeds now not only cuts the amount of weeding you'll
have to do next spring, it also will leave some bare soil in which
to sow seeds in the coming weeks. Many perennial flowers --
delphinium, clematis, and evening primrose, for example -- do well
if sown in autumn. Seeds of annuals such as snapdragon, poppy, and
pansy can lie in the ground through winter, ready to come to life
with the first breath of spring.
You need to get the garden
ready for Autumn, as it is a bountiful time for your yard. The cool
weather brings out the best in cabbages, Brussels sprouts, lettuces,
mustard greens and turnips. Flowers such as stonecrop sedum,
delphinium, viola, and, of course, chrysanthemum will burst into
bloom. Even annuals like calendula, snapdragon, alyssum, and petunia
continue their show until the mercury plummets well below freezing.
But you're not going to be able to see your flowers if
they're lost in a sea of weeds. You can kill the weeds with a hoe or
a rototiller, or you can just bend down and rip them out with your
bare hands, roots and all. You also can smother them beneath mulch.
Four layers of wet newspaper, topped by wood chips or straw to hide
the paper and hold it down, effectively kills weeds.
Weeding
need not be a daunting task. Start at one end of the garden, then
slowly and methodically make your way across to the other side. Keep
an eye on what you are doing, not what you have left to do. Work in
the cool of early morning or evening, pleasant times to be in the
garden, even if you are weeding.
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