Weeds - how to mitigate them OR encourage growth of the beneficial ones

In this episode we discuss weeds, both mitigation, and propagation. Some weeds are a problem, but some have beneficial properties

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00:00 Mary Mary, quite contrary, how does your garden grow? Well, that all depends, but that's not really what this podcast is about. We're here to help you grow your garden. Welcome to Mary and the Master Gardener. Today, Liz the Master Gardener is going to talk about how to keep weeds down or suppressed or gone, preferably.

00:24 Yes, as best as I can, as best as I can guide. Okay. Michelle Bellin asks, what's the best way to prevent weeds from taking over? Go ahead, Liz, tell me all the secrets. I don't know if there are any real secrets to weeds, but so here's a few methods that I use, and then there's methods that, right,

00:54 that are available to everyone. I don't use chemicals. I don't use herbicides. I don't use anything like that. I, I pull weeds. That's my method. But there's a lot of methods that you can use to get ahead of it, right? So so it's a big garden if you're doing vegetables, you know, using tilling sometimes can be

01:24 the best method at the beginning of the season. But if you're trying not to disrupt the ground too much, the number one would be mulching. So mulching using natural mulch, right? So straw, wood chips, shredded leaves, you can buy mulch at the store. It blocks sunlight, it prevents weeds from germinating and coming up.

01:53 you can also use weed barriers, right? So they make the landscape fabric that you can use. And it does a pretty good job, you know, of allowing air to come through, which plastic doesn't. So I don't recommend using plastic because it kills everything that's under it, right? It's gonna kill the worms. It's gonna kill all of this lovely ecosystem that you have going. So weed barrier is another

02:22 method and I've done that in my garden before. I go back and forth between that because it can be helpful especially if you're doing a lot on your own. But I think the number one is going to be mulching. Okay. Or staying ahead of it, right? Yes. I know it's the simplest and it's the most difficult.

02:48 because I always forget to lift with my legs and I always lift with my back and then the next morning I'm in pain and wondering what I did wrong. Yep, even though you know exactly what you did wrong, we all do it. It's so dumb, but we all do it. Right, yep, yep. Okay, so I have things to share on this too. In our newly built greenhouse, it's, I think it's 40 by...

03:16 18, 40 feet by 18 feet or 40 feet by 20 feet. We aren't necessarily gonna be growing anything in the actual dirt of the greenhouse. It's gonna be more seed starting and hanging pots and things like that. So my husband took the bags that our chicken feed comes in, cut them so they're flat, and he's laid those down in there to kill all the grasses and weeds that are still coming up because it was field. It was...

03:45 before the greenhouse was built where it is. And so we're not so concerned about screwing up the ecosystem in that soil because we don't intend to grow anything in that soil. And someone suggested to him that he use the feed bags because they're gonna cover the dirt, the sun won't be able to get to any seeds in the ground and nothing will grow anymore. So we're trying that for the greenhouse. I wouldn't try that for...

04:15 for a garden outside because it will ruin the soil. Right, yeah, that's true. So there's other methods too that are, I mean, go find some cardboard that you have laying around