August 30, 2019 • 24 mins
Have you ever struggled to keep your weeds at bay? It’s one of the most common problems for any homesteader. I don’t know about you, but I sure don’t want to be spending three hours a day in my garden just to keep my weeds under control. Over the years I’ve tried dealing with this issue in many different ways. Today I’m here to share my most effective tips in weed control. These will not only save you time, but they will also give you peace of mind. Make sure to stay tuned for my favorite home made weed spray!
Some highlights from the episode:
- Preventing weeds from seeding
- Why mulch is the best tool for preventing weeds
- How fire can be your friend
If you're ready to begin this homesteading journey, head to http://www.theprairiehomestead.com/grow to access my full library of resources to guide you down the path.
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- Jill on Facebook: http://facebook.com/theprairiehomestead
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the old fashioned on purpose podcast.
Today's episode is all about thewar of the weeds.
Weeds are a fact of life.
If you have a homestead or agarden of any kind, but you
don't have to reach for thosetoxic herbicides that are not so
(00:21):
great for you or your soil.
Stay tuned for some of my verybest all natural weed fighting
tips.
I'm your host Jill winger andfor the last 10 years I have
been helping people just likeyou who feel a little uninspired
(00:41):
by modern life.
I'll show you how to leave therat race and create the life you
really want by learning how togrow your own food and master
old fashioned skills.
I have to start this episodewith a little bit of a funny
back story because I am wellknown as an organic all natural
(01:04):
girl from my love of essentialoils for everything to organic
gardening and homesteading.
I am, you know the person onlinewho loves all things organic,
but it wasn't always that way.
In fact, growing up, my dadworked as a farm chemical
(01:28):
salesman and I even believe thecompany he worked for was owned
by a subsidiary of Monsanto.
So they were actually connectedto Monsanto in some way, which
if you've ever googled that orseen anything online, you know
Monsanto is very, verycontroversial, but he sold
(01:48):
roundup and every sort ofchemical you can imagine that
farmers would spray on theirfields for herbicides or
pesticides.
Even to the point where all ofour coffee cups growing up or
emblazoned with Chemical Logosbecause my dad would get coffee
(02:08):
cups, his gifts or you know,they would come in from the
supplier and he'd bring themhome.
So we had all these chemicalnames on our coffee cups that
even occasionally they'd give usa knife set that had a logo on
it.
So really funny consideringthat's where I'm from and where
I ended up.
But that being said, I don'tlike using chemicals on our
(02:33):
homestead.
I refuse to use roundup evenwhen the grass drives me crazy
in my driveway.
I just would rather opt out ofall those things.
That does leave me with weeds,especially in my garden and I
know that you guys can relate tothis, but weeds take a lot of
(02:54):
our time as gardeners andhomesteaders and I personally
don't have three hours a daythat I can spend in the garden
keeping up with the weeds andI'm guessing that you don't
either.
Over the years I've come up withsome different strategies that I
(03:15):
employ to keep weeds to aminimum.
Now I'm not going to say thatthis banishes every weed in the
whole world because I don't eventhink that's possible, but there
are things you can do to reducethe number of hours a day or
week that you have to be outsidepulling weeds on your hands and
(03:35):
knees.
I want to walk through some ofmy favorite strategies today.
Some of these are strategies I'musing right now as we speak, and
other ones are things I've hadon my list to try or have just
been in my awareness of optionsthat are out there.
But I wanted to give you allsorts of ideas whether I've
(03:57):
tried them or not, that you cango do a bit more research on and
maybe implement them in your ownsituation.
I want to start off by sayingthere is a couple things you can
do to just prevent weeds fromcoming back and proliferating to
start with.
(04:18):
A big one to keep in mind, andthis might be easier said than
done, is just to be mindful ofyour cultivation.
The weed seeds, you know, arekind of always in the soil.
And as we cultivate that soil ortill it up or continually till
it up year after year, we'rebringing those weed seeds to the
(04:39):
surface over and over again.
And that's why there are somedefinite advantages to this idea
of no till gardening, rightwhere you do minimal tilling or
no tilling it all.
You just layer things on there.
And the idea behind that is onceyou pick or deal with all that
weed seed amount on that firstlayer, you're never going to
(05:04):
bring the bottom layers of seedsup to the surface.
Now I realized there's lots ofgardening methods and sometimes
tilling makes sense.
Um, I did try no till methodsback when I was doing deep mulch
and I have a whole episode onthat and why I don't do it
anymore.
B ut I think there's definitelymerit to that idea or at the
(05:26):
very least if you arecultivating portions of your
garden, maybe consider the areaswhere you don't have to till i
t, whether that's walkways oredging or so on.
But be mindful of that and knowthat there are dormant weed
seeds in that soil and try toleave them deep if you can.
And another little side notethat, and this is a partial
(05:49):
current weeds strategy andpartially a preventative weed
strategy, but if you havecertain weeds you're struggling
with year after year, especiallyreally big ones that are very
determined, make sure they nevergo to seed.
And I like to do what I callexhausting the weed.
And I don't do this on my littleweeds, but there are certain
(06:12):
plants that grow on ourhomestead.
For example, yellow dock isreally frustrating for me
because we don't have like tonsof it, but the yellow dock I do
have, I can not kill, I cannotdig it up.
And I try and I try and I've dugto China trying to get to the
root and I just can't get itout.
(06:34):
I have a couple spots in myraised bed garden walkways where
the dock comes up over and overagain.
I can't dig it up.
So what I do instead is I amconstantly cutting or pulling it
down to the ground level.
And I never, never, never let itget seeds of any kind on there.
And that's really important.
(06:56):
As you're weeding or even inareas of your yard where you
might not be paying as closeattention, you know, on borders
or edges, make sure you don'thave big old weeds over there
that are getting healthy seedpods and getting ready to
release them into the world.
That's just going to cause somuch headache for you.
(07:17):
And I know it's really easy.
One of my focuses on myvegetable gardens or my flower
beds to kind of ignore what'shappening on the edges of my
homestead.
And I think a lot of my weedseeds can come from those areas.
So keep that in mind.
Careful cultivation, making surethat you're never letting
anything go to seed that willgive you a good headstart.
(07:38):
Those are some strategies tostop weeds from starting in the
first place.
But what about the areas of yourgarden that you're already
actively battling?
You know, a consistent weedinvasion.
My number one all time favoritetip for that, which is not a new
concept, but I want tounderscore it again is mulch.
(08:02):
Like I mentioned a few minutesago, I've been involved in the
deep mulch method for severalyears.
I don't do it actively anymore,but I have lots of information
on my blog and in the podcastepisodes previously about that
whole venture.
But even though I don't followthat official Ruth Stout deep
(08:22):
mulch right now, I still amusing mulch in my raised beds.
Currently what I'm using formulch material is grass
clippings.
We got an industrial mowerbecause we live on the prairie
and there's a lot of grass andyou know, sometimes people
criticize the idea of grass orlawns, but for us grass is
(08:48):
native and natural and it needsto be cut just for a tidiness
sake.
We have an Mower, and we mow thegrass and it captures the
clippings and I'm able to usethose as mulch there.
It's fantastic mulch.
It's fine and it's easy to workwith.
And I have really loved havingthat.
(09:10):
You have to be careful if youare in town or getting grass
clippings from another source.
Be very, very, very mindful theclippings have not been sprayed
with some sort of herbicidecause that will potentially
cause havoc in your garden.
So the grass clippings must becompletely clean and organic, if
(09:31):
you will, but as long as you canbe sure of that.
They're really nice.
I love mulching with them.
Um, I mulch several beds thathad more mature seedlings
before.
We went on vacation a couple ofweeks ago.
And when I came home, the bedsthat had not been mulched were
absolute disaster.
And the beds that had beenmulched were really pretty darn
(09:55):
good.
I had a few weeds I had to pluckfrom those beds, but it wasn't
out of control.
I was really, really happy withthe results.
The key is to make sure you'reusing enough mulch to really
smother anything underneath.
And I always, always weed beforeI mulch so it doesn't work so
(10:15):
hot.
If you have larger weeds andyou're trying to smush them down
with the Mulch, haven't had goodresults with that cause they're
pretty resilient and they'llpoke right back up through.
So give everything a good weed,mulch it generously, and it will
go a long way in reducing yourworkload.
Beyond grass clippings, thereare definite other options for
(10:39):
mulch.
Straw is one, if you can get it,it's a good option.
Also leaves.
If you have a lot of leaves inyour area, we do not because the
wind blows them all away.
So I don't ever really get touse leaves.
But I know some areas of thecountry have plenty.
You can use hay.
Even though I know that somepeople just lose their minds
(11:01):
when you, they hear the words,hay mulch.
But that's actually what I usedwhen I was deep mulching.
And as long as your layer isthick enough and deep enough, it
should feasibly smother out thehayseeds so you shouldn't have
any germination.
Now if you are planning on justputting a shallow layer of
Mulch, I would not recommendusing hay, only use it as if you
(11:26):
know it has not been sprayedwith any sort of herbicide.
And you know that you can use agood hefty layer to keep those
hayseeds at bay.
Now organic mulches are great ifyou need a little more oomph,
newspaper can be something youadd into your mulch routine.
(11:48):
That'll give you a little morebang for your buck.
The trick for us is I don't getthe newspaper and I don't really
know anybody who gets the dailynewspaper.
So it's hard for me to findthem.
I suppose if I went to therecycling center, maybe I could
beg for some or I make friendswith somebody who gets newspaper
every day.
So I just don't have a lot ofit.
(12:11):
But if you have access to a lotof newspaper, you can lay it
over the top of your garden orif you already have mature
plants, lay it around the matureplants, wet it down so it
doesn't blow away.
And then add your organic mulchon top of the newspaper, whether
it's woodchips or hay or grassclippings and that will just
(12:34):
smother out the weed seeds alittle more thoroughly.
This is also an option if youhave flower beds or shrubs,
let's say along your house andyou're struggling with weeds,
you know, put your newspaperdown and then cover it with
landscape bark or wood chips.
Newspaper is going to last ayear or two before it
(12:55):
decomposes.
So it's not a permanent option,but it works well.
You could also use landscapefabric, um, that works.
It's a little pricier.
You're not going to be able toget it for free, but as long as
you're laying it out, I findit's a little frustrating to try
to cut it around existingplants.
But if you have just an opengarden plot, landscape fabric
(13:17):
should go down pretty quickly.
Okay.
So those are a few of thestrategies I have used and are
currently using.
I want to talk about a fewoptions that I haven't used yet,
but they sound kind of cool.
I have to throw these out here.
If you've tried these, you'vegot to leave a comment on my
(13:37):
Facebook or Instagram and tellme how it's worked for you.
Okay, so there's two things.
First off is flame weeding andthis is just as cool as it
sounds.
You get a tool called a flameweeder, which is like a torch
thing and you can burn the weedsdown to ground level.
Um, now I think this works beston smaller weeds.
(13:59):
You're going to have to take alot of precautions that you
don't catch anything on fire.
You know, we're pretty dry andcrunchy here in the late summer,
so I had to be very mindful thatI didn't burn down the prairie.
But it'll kind of scorch theweeds down and you're not down
there trying to pick them onyour hands and knees.
So pretty cool.
I would not use this method inmy vegetable garden.
(14:21):
I would probably only use it onthe edges of our yard or if you
have sidewalks or walkways or,or whatever.
But it's an option.
Pretty cool if you want to lookinto it.
Another cool thing I justrecently discovered was the idea
of bind weed mites.
Now this is actually a specificto a certain type of weed, bind
(14:42):
weed.
If you don't know what bind weedis, you are a lucky, lucky
person cause it is got to be oneof the worst weeds in existence.
We struggle with it every singleyear.
It's almost impossible to killthe roots go deep, deep into the
ground.
It's this vine and I, from whatI've read, even if a small chunk
(15:03):
of vine, um, is in the soil oreven in a compost pile, it can
come back from that little tinypiece.
The seeds lasts for decades inthe soil.
You can't pull it out by theroots, it will choke your plants
and kind of wind around yourgood plants and choke them down.
It's just nasty stuff and wehave a lot of it.
So I pull it and pull it andpull it.
(15:25):
And I always burn it once I pullit out because I don't want to
put it in my compost pile, butI'm trying to find different
options to deal with it.
And there is a bug called or aninsect rather called a bind weed
mite that you can get from someextension agencies across the
country depending on your state.
And apparently this insect livesand you know, uses bind weed as
(15:49):
a host and eventually it willweaken and kill the vine, the
bind weed, it's notinstantaneous, it takes about a
year or two.
But I'm willing to try anythingat this point.
So I'm going to see if I canfind some mites and they're
apparently been approved sothey're not going to be like an
invasive species that would hurtother insects in the area.
(16:13):
So it sounds like they're,they're safe, but if I can find
some, I'm gonna try them and seeif it helps.
Because at this point I ampretty desperate and if you're
listening and you have bind weedtips, definitely send them my
way because I'm willing to tryalmost anything at this point.
Now kind of following up withthis idea of ideas I've heard of
(16:35):
and haven't tried, there's alsothis concept of soil
solarization, which is basicallybaking your soil in the sun.
Now you have to use some sort ofplastic to intensify this
process and a lot of peoplerecommend it.
To be honest, I was really gungHo to try it, this spring and I
(16:58):
started reading thatit canactually not only kill off any
bad bacteria or organisms inyour soil.
It can also be harmful to thegood ones.
So I didn't want to mess up thebalance of my soil, so I haven't
tried it yet.
But I think if you were at apoint where you were desperate,
you had a horrible weedinfestation and an area of your
(17:20):
garden, or you had some sort ofplant disease in the soil that
you couldn't get rid of, thiswould be a measure you could
definitely take.
So here's soil solarization in anutshell.
You basically take a plot ofland that you want to purge.
You till it up, dig it up,whatever, get rid of the rocks
(17:43):
or clumps, kind of make itsmooth, level it out, and then
soak it completely with, soit's, it's very wet, like
several feet down.
Then you take a plastic, andI've heard black plastic is best
and you stretch it over the top.
Sometimes you might even needtwo layers of plastic, stretch
it over the top, make sure allthe edges are anchored down,
(18:07):
whether you're kind of diggingit under and, and putting it
under the soil and then mountingsoil on top or using rocks or
steaks, you want it to be wellanchored.
And then you leave it for a longtime.
That's kind of the downfall ofthis method is it that plastics
gotta be on the soil a lengthyperiod of time.
(18:27):
If you live in a very hot partof the country such as the
south, I've heard that it'saround six to eight weeks at a
minimum that you must leave theplastic on the soil.
If you're in a cooler area likeus, the northern part of the
country, you have to leave theplastic on all season like six
to eight months during a hot andsunny summer.
(18:51):
That's a long time.
So for me, if I did that, Iwould lose an entire growing
season.
And when I started to weigh thepros and cons, losing a growing
season really wasn't worth that.
I don't have that many weeds inmy beds to justify skipping a
whole season.
Now I might try this on an areaof my garden.
(19:12):
I have a walkway where I'llnever plant vegetables.
It's just a walkway.
And I've done bark and landscapefabric there and I still have
bind weed issues.
So I'm considering trying thisplastic concept over the top of
that.
They won't be able to till itfirst but just see if it will
kind of scorched the bind weed,uh, or help in some way, shape
(19:35):
or form.
So that's where I'm going to tryit first and then maybe
potentially use it other places,but I'm a little bit leery of
just solarizing my entiregarden.
And I think if you'reconsidering it, you really need
to be looking at the pros andcons before you dive in.
Just to summarize where we'vebeen so far, we've talked about
(19:58):
ways to prevent weeds and getrid of existing weeds and some
cool weed techniques out there.
And to wrap up this episode, Iwant to share my favorite
homemade spray for weeds.
I do not use roundup, like Istated before, not a fan.
And most of the time I'm dealingwith weeds by either pulling
(20:19):
them or mulching them or youknow, all these other methods.
But occasionally spraying makessense.
And the areas that I am prone tospray are mostly like in our
driveway, around the edges ofour lawn and walkways and so on.
I don't use sprays in my gardenbecause there's too much of a
risk of the spray getting on mygood plants.
(20:42):
So this is more of anapplication where you're just
trying to like annihilate theweeds in your driveway or
whatever.
But this is what I would do.
Vinegar because it's acidic canbe a good option for homemade
weed sprays.
You can get what is calledhorticultural vinegar, which is
(21:03):
way stronger, far more caustic,and that's going to do the job a
little bit more quickly.
The downfalls of horticulturalvinegar, it's more expensive,
it's harder to find and it iscaustic.
So you have to be really carefulhandling it.
You can either find that or youcan just grab a gallon of the
(21:24):
cheap white vinegar at the storeand use that.
It's not going to kill thingsquite as quickly, but it'll
still get the job done.
Now with your gallon of vinegar,you're gonna pour it in a bucket
or a bowl and dissolve in onecup of Epsom salts into this
vinegar and then add a squirt ofdish soap and pour it into a
(21:49):
sprayer.
You can then spray this saltvinegar mixture on any weeds you
want to kill.
I would recommend like if you'redealing with weeds and a
driveway that you weed whackthem or mow them down short
first and then spray them.
It's going to take a lot longerif you're spraying a huge plant
with lots of leaves.
(22:11):
And then wait, you know, as longas it's hot and dry, the vinegar
should start taking effectspretty quickly.
If it rains in between sprays,you know, reapply as needed.
Now be very, very careful thoughwith this because since it has
salt in it, once salt goes intothe soil, things aren't going to
(22:32):
grow there.
So if this is why I would notuse the spray in my garden, it's
only gonna be an areas where Iwant nothing to grow.
Um, you could also leave thesalt out if you're concerned.
And just use the vinegar.
It might take a little bitlonger, but it should work
decently well in the same timeperiod.
So to wrap everything up, nonchemical weeding is a continual
(22:56):
process and you have to becommitted to it.
So figure out your strategies,put together your arsenal of
weed fighting weapons and youwill see a reduction in the
weeds if you're consistent.
As long as we use these naturaltools and get creative, I am
totally convinced that we do nothave to use those nasty sprays
(23:19):
or roundup or whatever in ourbeautiful organic gardens.
So if you're ready to do thishomestead thing, you're feeling
inspired and ready to go, butyou're not quite sure where to
start.
Well, that's my specialty.
I just so happen to have a wholelibrary of resources I put
(23:39):
together for homesteaders justlike you.
And you can get complimentaryaccess to this at
theprairiehomestead.com/grow g ro w and that's it.
If you have just a minute, Iwould be so honored to have you
subscribe to the old fashionedon purpose podcast and leave me
(24:01):
a quick review over on iTunes somore people can find it and
bring home setting into theirlives.
Thanks for listening and I'llcatch up with you next time.
Happy homesteading.
Welcome to the old fashioned on purpose podcast.
Today's episode is all about thewar of the weeds.
Weeds are a fact of life.
If you have a homestead or agarden of any kind, but you
don't have to reach for thosetoxic herbicides that are not so
(00:21):
great for you or your soil.
Stay tuned for some of my verybest all natural weed fighting
tips.
I'm your host Jill winger andfor the last 10 years I have
been helping people just likeyou who feel a little uninspired
(00:41):
by modern life.
I'll show you how to leave therat race and create the life you
really want by learning how togrow your own food and master
old fashioned skills.
I have to start this episodewith a little bit of a funny
back story because I am wellknown as an organic all natural
(01:04):
girl from my love of essentialoils for everything to organic
gardening and homesteading.
I am, you know the person onlinewho loves all things organic,
but it wasn't always that way.
In fact, growing up, my dadworked as a farm chemical
(01:28):
salesman and I even believe thecompany he worked for was owned
by a subsidiary of Monsanto.
So they were actually connectedto Monsanto in some way, which
if you've ever googled that orseen anything online, you know
Monsanto is very, verycontroversial, but he sold
(01:48):
roundup and every sort ofchemical you can imagine that
farmers would spray on theirfields for herbicides or
pesticides.
Even to the point where all ofour coffee cups growing up or
emblazoned with Chemical Logosbecause my dad would get coffee
(02:08):
cups, his gifts or you know,they would come in from the
supplier and he'd bring themhome.
So we had all these chemicalnames on our coffee cups that
even occasionally they'd give usa knife set that had a logo on
it.
So really funny consideringthat's where I'm from and where
I ended up.
But that being said, I don'tlike using chemicals on our
(02:33):
homestead.
I refuse to use roundup evenwhen the grass drives me crazy
in my driveway.
I just would rather opt out ofall those things.
That does leave me with weeds,especially in my garden and I
know that you guys can relate tothis, but weeds take a lot of
(02:54):
our time as gardeners andhomesteaders and I personally
don't have three hours a daythat I can spend in the garden
keeping up with the weeds andI'm guessing that you don't
either.
Over the years I've come up withsome different strategies that I
(03:15):
employ to keep weeds to aminimum.
Now I'm not going to say thatthis banishes every weed in the
whole world because I don't eventhink that's possible, but there
are things you can do to reducethe number of hours a day or
week that you have to be outsidepulling weeds on your hands and
(03:35):
knees.
I want to walk through some ofmy favorite strategies today.
Some of these are strategies I'musing right now as we speak, and
other ones are things I've hadon my list to try or have just
been in my awareness of optionsthat are out there.
But I wanted to give you allsorts of ideas whether I've
(03:57):
tried them or not, that you cango do a bit more research on and
maybe implement them in your ownsituation.
I want to start off by sayingthere is a couple things you can
do to just prevent weeds fromcoming back and proliferating to
start with.
(04:18):
A big one to keep in mind, andthis might be easier said than
done, is just to be mindful ofyour cultivation.
The weed seeds, you know, arekind of always in the soil.
And as we cultivate that soil ortill it up or continually till
it up year after year, we'rebringing those weed seeds to the
(04:39):
surface over and over again.
And that's why there are somedefinite advantages to this idea
of no till gardening, rightwhere you do minimal tilling or
no tilling it all.
You just layer things on there.
And the idea behind that is onceyou pick or deal with all that
weed seed amount on that firstlayer, you're never going to
(05:04):
bring the bottom layers of seedsup to the surface.
Now I realized there's lots ofgardening methods and sometimes
tilling makes sense.
Um, I did try no till methodsback when I was doing deep mulch
and I have a whole episode onthat and why I don't do it
anymore.
B ut I think there's definitelymerit to that idea or at the
(05:26):
very least if you arecultivating portions of your
garden, maybe consider the areaswhere you don't have to till i
t, whether that's walkways oredging or so on.
But be mindful of that and knowthat there are dormant weed
seeds in that soil and try toleave them deep if you can.
And another little side notethat, and this is a partial
(05:49):
current weeds strategy andpartially a preventative weed
strategy, but if you havecertain weeds you're struggling
with year after year, especiallyreally big ones that are very
determined, make sure they nevergo to seed.
And I like to do what I callexhausting the weed.
And I don't do this on my littleweeds, but there are certain
(06:12):
plants that grow on ourhomestead.
For example, yellow dock isreally frustrating for me
because we don't have like tonsof it, but the yellow dock I do
have, I can not kill, I cannotdig it up.
And I try and I try and I've dugto China trying to get to the
root and I just can't get itout.
(06:34):
I have a couple spots in myraised bed garden walkways where
the dock comes up over and overagain.
I can't dig it up.
So what I do instead is I amconstantly cutting or pulling it
down to the ground level.
And I never, never, never let itget seeds of any kind on there.
And that's really important.
(06:56):
As you're weeding or even inareas of your yard where you
might not be paying as closeattention, you know, on borders
or edges, make sure you don'thave big old weeds over there
that are getting healthy seedpods and getting ready to
release them into the world.
That's just going to cause somuch headache for you.
(07:17):
And I know it's really easy.
One of my focuses on myvegetable gardens or my flower
beds to kind of ignore what'shappening on the edges of my
homestead.
And I think a lot of my weedseeds can come from those areas.
So keep that in mind.
Careful cultivation, making surethat you're never letting
anything go to seed that willgive you a good headstart.
(07:38):
Those are some strategies tostop weeds from starting in the
first place.
But what about the areas of yourgarden that you're already
actively battling?
You know, a consistent weedinvasion.
My number one all time favoritetip for that, which is not a new
concept, but I want tounderscore it again is mulch.
(08:02):
Like I mentioned a few minutesago, I've been involved in the
deep mulch method for severalyears.
I don't do it actively anymore,but I have lots of information
on my blog and in the podcastepisodes previously about that
whole venture.
But even though I don't followthat official Ruth Stout deep
(08:22):
mulch right now, I still amusing mulch in my raised beds.
Currently what I'm using formulch material is grass
clippings.
We got an industrial mowerbecause we live on the prairie
and there's a lot of grass andyou know, sometimes people
criticize the idea of grass orlawns, but for us grass is
(08:48):
native and natural and it needsto be cut just for a tidiness
sake.
We have an Mower, and we mow thegrass and it captures the
clippings and I'm able to usethose as mulch there.
It's fantastic mulch.
It's fine and it's easy to workwith.
And I have really loved havingthat.
(09:10):
You have to be careful if youare in town or getting grass
clippings from another source.
Be very, very, very mindful theclippings have not been sprayed
with some sort of herbicidecause that will potentially
cause havoc in your garden.
So the grass clippings must becompletely clean and organic, if
(09:31):
you will, but as long as you canbe sure of that.
They're really nice.
I love mulching with them.
Um, I mulch several beds thathad more mature seedlings
before.
We went on vacation a couple ofweeks ago.
And when I came home, the bedsthat had not been mulched were
absolute disaster.
And the beds that had beenmulched were really pretty darn
(09:55):
good.
I had a few weeds I had to pluckfrom those beds, but it wasn't
out of control.
I was really, really happy withthe results.
The key is to make sure you'reusing enough mulch to really
smother anything underneath.
And I always, always weed beforeI mulch so it doesn't work so
(10:15):
hot.
If you have larger weeds andyou're trying to smush them down
with the Mulch, haven't had goodresults with that cause they're
pretty resilient and they'llpoke right back up through.
So give everything a good weed,mulch it generously, and it will
go a long way in reducing yourworkload.
Beyond grass clippings, thereare definite other options for
(10:39):
mulch.
Straw is one, if you can get it,it's a good option.
Also leaves.
If you have a lot of leaves inyour area, we do not because the
wind blows them all away.
So I don't ever really get touse leaves.
But I know some areas of thecountry have plenty.
You can use hay.
Even though I know that somepeople just lose their minds
(11:01):
when you, they hear the words,hay mulch.
But that's actually what I usedwhen I was deep mulching.
And as long as your layer isthick enough and deep enough, it
should feasibly smother out thehayseeds so you shouldn't have
any germination.
Now if you are planning on justputting a shallow layer of
Mulch, I would not recommendusing hay, only use it as if you
(11:26):
know it has not been sprayedwith any sort of herbicide.
And you know that you can use agood hefty layer to keep those
hayseeds at bay.
Now organic mulches are great ifyou need a little more oomph,
newspaper can be something youadd into your mulch routine.
(11:48):
That'll give you a little morebang for your buck.
The trick for us is I don't getthe newspaper and I don't really
know anybody who gets the dailynewspaper.
So it's hard for me to findthem.
I suppose if I went to therecycling center, maybe I could
beg for some or I make friendswith somebody who gets newspaper
every day.
So I just don't have a lot ofit.
(12:11):
But if you have access to a lotof newspaper, you can lay it
over the top of your garden orif you already have mature
plants, lay it around the matureplants, wet it down so it
doesn't blow away.
And then add your organic mulchon top of the newspaper, whether
it's woodchips or hay or grassclippings and that will just
(12:34):
smother out the weed seeds alittle more thoroughly.
This is also an option if youhave flower beds or shrubs,
let's say along your house andyou're struggling with weeds,
you know, put your newspaperdown and then cover it with
landscape bark or wood chips.
Newspaper is going to last ayear or two before it
(12:55):
decomposes.
So it's not a permanent option,but it works well.
You could also use landscapefabric, um, that works.
It's a little pricier.
You're not going to be able toget it for free, but as long as
you're laying it out, I findit's a little frustrating to try
to cut it around existingplants.
But if you have just an opengarden plot, landscape fabric
(13:17):
should go down pretty quickly.
Okay.
So those are a few of thestrategies I have used and are
currently using.
I want to talk about a fewoptions that I haven't used yet,
but they sound kind of cool.
I have to throw these out here.
If you've tried these, you'vegot to leave a comment on my
(13:37):
Facebook or Instagram and tellme how it's worked for you.
Okay, so there's two things.
First off is flame weeding andthis is just as cool as it
sounds.
You get a tool called a flameweeder, which is like a torch
thing and you can burn the weedsdown to ground level.
Um, now I think this works beston smaller weeds.
(13:59):
You're going to have to take alot of precautions that you
don't catch anything on fire.
You know, we're pretty dry andcrunchy here in the late summer,
so I had to be very mindful thatI didn't burn down the prairie.
But it'll kind of scorch theweeds down and you're not down
there trying to pick them onyour hands and knees.
So pretty cool.
I would not use this method inmy vegetable garden.
(14:21):
I would probably only use it onthe edges of our yard or if you
have sidewalks or walkways or,or whatever.
But it's an option.
Pretty cool if you want to lookinto it.
Another cool thing I justrecently discovered was the idea
of bind weed mites.
Now this is actually a specificto a certain type of weed, bind
(14:42):
weed.
If you don't know what bind weedis, you are a lucky, lucky
person cause it is got to be oneof the worst weeds in existence.
We struggle with it every singleyear.
It's almost impossible to killthe roots go deep, deep into the
ground.
It's this vine and I, from whatI've read, even if a small chunk
(15:03):
of vine, um, is in the soil oreven in a compost pile, it can
come back from that little tinypiece.
The seeds lasts for decades inthe soil.
You can't pull it out by theroots, it will choke your plants
and kind of wind around yourgood plants and choke them down.
It's just nasty stuff and wehave a lot of it.
So I pull it and pull it andpull it.
(15:25):
And I always burn it once I pullit out because I don't want to
put it in my compost pile, butI'm trying to find different
options to deal with it.
And there is a bug called or aninsect rather called a bind weed
mite that you can get from someextension agencies across the
country depending on your state.
And apparently this insect livesand you know, uses bind weed as
(15:49):
a host and eventually it willweaken and kill the vine, the
bind weed, it's notinstantaneous, it takes about a
year or two.
But I'm willing to try anythingat this point.
So I'm going to see if I canfind some mites and they're
apparently been approved sothey're not going to be like an
invasive species that would hurtother insects in the area.
(16:13):
So it sounds like they're,they're safe, but if I can find
some, I'm gonna try them and seeif it helps.
Because at this point I ampretty desperate and if you're
listening and you have bind weedtips, definitely send them my
way because I'm willing to tryalmost anything at this point.
Now kind of following up withthis idea of ideas I've heard of
(16:35):
and haven't tried, there's alsothis concept of soil
solarization, which is basicallybaking your soil in the sun.
Now you have to use some sort ofplastic to intensify this
process and a lot of peoplerecommend it.
To be honest, I was really gungHo to try it, this spring and I
(16:58):
started reading thatit canactually not only kill off any
bad bacteria or organisms inyour soil.
It can also be harmful to thegood ones.
So I didn't want to mess up thebalance of my soil, so I haven't
tried it yet.
But I think if you were at apoint where you were desperate,
you had a horrible weedinfestation and an area of your
(17:20):
garden, or you had some sort ofplant disease in the soil that
you couldn't get rid of, thiswould be a measure you could
definitely take.
So here's soil solarization in anutshell.
You basically take a plot ofland that you want to purge.
You till it up, dig it up,whatever, get rid of the rocks
(17:43):
or clumps, kind of make itsmooth, level it out, and then
soak it completely with, soit's, it's very wet, like
several feet down.
Then you take a plastic, andI've heard black plastic is best
and you stretch it over the top.
Sometimes you might even needtwo layers of plastic, stretch
it over the top, make sure allthe edges are anchored down,
(18:07):
whether you're kind of diggingit under and, and putting it
under the soil and then mountingsoil on top or using rocks or
steaks, you want it to be wellanchored.
And then you leave it for a longtime.
That's kind of the downfall ofthis method is it that plastics
gotta be on the soil a lengthyperiod of time.
(18:27):
If you live in a very hot partof the country such as the
south, I've heard that it'saround six to eight weeks at a
minimum that you must leave theplastic on the soil.
If you're in a cooler area likeus, the northern part of the
country, you have to leave theplastic on all season like six
to eight months during a hot andsunny summer.
(18:51):
That's a long time.
So for me, if I did that, Iwould lose an entire growing
season.
And when I started to weigh thepros and cons, losing a growing
season really wasn't worth that.
I don't have that many weeds inmy beds to justify skipping a
whole season.
Now I might try this on an areaof my garden.
(19:12):
I have a walkway where I'llnever plant vegetables.
It's just a walkway.
And I've done bark and landscapefabric there and I still have
bind weed issues.
So I'm considering trying thisplastic concept over the top of
that.
They won't be able to till itfirst but just see if it will
kind of scorched the bind weed,uh, or help in some way, shape
(19:35):
or form.
So that's where I'm going to tryit first and then maybe
potentially use it other places,but I'm a little bit leery of
just solarizing my entiregarden.
And I think if you'reconsidering it, you really need
to be looking at the pros andcons before you dive in.
Just to summarize where we'vebeen so far, we've talked about
(19:58):
ways to prevent weeds and getrid of existing weeds and some
cool weed techniques out there.
And to wrap up this episode, Iwant to share my favorite
homemade spray for weeds.
I do not use roundup, like Istated before, not a fan.
And most of the time I'm dealingwith weeds by either pulling
(20:19):
them or mulching them or youknow, all these other methods.
But occasionally spraying makessense.
And the areas that I am prone tospray are mostly like in our
driveway, around the edges ofour lawn and walkways and so on.
I don't use sprays in my gardenbecause there's too much of a
risk of the spray getting on mygood plants.
(20:42):
So this is more of anapplication where you're just
trying to like annihilate theweeds in your driveway or
whatever.
But this is what I would do.
Vinegar because it's acidic canbe a good option for homemade
weed sprays.
You can get what is calledhorticultural vinegar, which is
(21:03):
way stronger, far more caustic,and that's going to do the job a
little bit more quickly.
The downfalls of horticulturalvinegar, it's more expensive,
it's harder to find and it iscaustic.
So you have to be really carefulhandling it.
You can either find that or youcan just grab a gallon of the
(21:24):
cheap white vinegar at the storeand use that.
It's not going to kill thingsquite as quickly, but it'll
still get the job done.
Now with your gallon of vinegar,you're gonna pour it in a bucket
or a bowl and dissolve in onecup of Epsom salts into this
vinegar and then add a squirt ofdish soap and pour it into a
(21:49):
sprayer.
You can then spray this saltvinegar mixture on any weeds you
want to kill.
I would recommend like if you'redealing with weeds and a
driveway that you weed whackthem or mow them down short
first and then spray them.
It's going to take a lot longerif you're spraying a huge plant
with lots of leaves.
(22:11):
And then wait, you know, as longas it's hot and dry, the vinegar
should start taking effectspretty quickly.
If it rains in between sprays,you know, reapply as needed.
Now be very, very careful thoughwith this because since it has
salt in it, once salt goes intothe soil, things aren't going to
(22:32):
grow there.
So if this is why I would notuse the spray in my garden, it's
only gonna be an areas where Iwant nothing to grow.
Um, you could also leave thesalt out if you're concerned.
And just use the vinegar.
It might take a little bitlonger, but it should work
decently well in the same timeperiod.
So to wrap everything up, nonchemical weeding is a continual
(22:56):
process and you have to becommitted to it.
So figure out your strategies,put together your arsenal of
weed fighting weapons and youwill see a reduction in the
weeds if you're consistent.
As long as we use these naturaltools and get creative, I am
totally convinced that we do nothave to use those nasty sprays
(23:19):
or roundup or whatever in ourbeautiful organic gardens.
So if you're ready to do thishomestead thing, you're feeling
inspired and ready to go, butyou're not quite sure where to
start.
Well, that's my specialty.
I just so happen to have a wholelibrary of resources I put
(23:39):
together for homesteaders justlike you.
And you can get complimentaryaccess to this at
theprairiehomestead.com/grow g ro w and that's it.
If you have just a minute, Iwould be so honored to have you
subscribe to the old fashionedon purpose podcast and leave me
(24:01):
a quick review over on iTunes somore people can find it and
bring home setting into theirlives.
Thanks for listening and I'llcatch up with you next time.
Happy homesteading.
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