How to Control Weeds

Weeds are just plants that are growing where you don't want them to be. They compete with your crops for sunlight, water, and soil nutrients. Controlling weeds is one of the hardest parts of growing food.

Many farmers use herbicides to control weeds. But most low-income growers can't afford them and most vegetable gardeners prefer not to use them. Herbicides can drift onto neighbor’s land and there are health and environmental concerns with their use.

Hoeing — Cut at the Roots

Instead, kitchen gardeners usually rely on cultivation with hoes, and on the use of mulch. There are several different types of hoes.

Low-income gardeners in developing countries often only have a heavy grubbing hoe. These are designed to move dirt.

There are other hoes that are much more effective at removing weeds. Three of the best are the collinear hoe, the reciprocating or hula hoe, and the three-sided scuffle hoe.

All three of these hoes work best when they slice the weeds just below the soil surface. This is fast and easy when they are kept razor-sharp with a file. They can quickly cut tender young weeds before they compete with your crops, and especially before the weeds go to seed.

Most weeds produce a huge amount of seed quickly. For example, one Lambsquarter plant can produce 70,000 seeds, and a single Pigweed plant can put out over half a million seeds. Obviously, this is not great math for the gardener. So try to cut them down before they flower.

Even better than cutting down weeds before they flower is preventing them from ever taking root.

Mulching — A Great Solution

This is one of the main functions of mulch. Mulch is a protective layer placed around plants that blocks sunlight from reaching sprouting weed seeds. It has the added benefits of slowing down the loss of soil moisture and moderating the soil temperature.

Newspapers are sometimes used as mulch, though they can end up blowing around or forming a mat that can block rainwater from reaching your plant roots.

Some commercial vegetable growers use plastic mulch. It can save some labor and helps keep crops clean, but it is an additional cost for low-income gardeners and can leave your garden cluttered with degraded plastic. And there is already way too much discarded plastic in the world.

Organic mulches, such as straw, hay, and compost have several important advantages for home gardeners. They provide a slow and steady supply of plant nutrients and a food source for beneficial soil life. If you use hay as a mulch, try to find hay that was harvested before the grasses formed seeds.

Straw or hay mulch is fast and easy to place around plants. One or two inches of compost mulch is ideal in terms of feeding the soil, but most gardeners don't have enough compost to mulch their entire garden.

My favorite approach is to put some compost around the plants and then cover the compost with straw or hay. This combination makes good use of limited compost. It keeps the weeds down, holds moisture, moderates the soil temperature, and nourishes the plants and the soil biology.

One strategy that is not used often enough is to eat the weeds that are edible. This Purepechan woman in southern Mexico is gathering Dock, a common field weed, to add to soup. Many cultures have a tradition of using the first edible weeds as a “spring tonic” to revitalize after a long winter without any fresh food.

A lot of common garden weeds are not only edible, many of them are more nutritious than our traditional garden crops.

For example, compared to Head lettuce, Lambsquarters have four and a half times more protein and ten times more vitamin C.

Purslane has nine time more iron and Dandelions have 43 times as much vitamin A as lettuce.

Like the garden greens that we grow on purpose, edible weeds are almost always tastier and more tender when young. They can quickly become tough and bitter when they begin to flower. This is because the plant is moving nutrients out of the leaves into the reproductive system.

Some Common Edible Weeds

Here are a few other common garden weeds that are edible, nutritious and have a long history of use as food.

• Pigweed
• Stinging Nettles (use gloves to harvest nettles. They don't sting after they are cooked or dried.)
• Plantain
• Winter cress
• Chickweed
• Ramps
• Onion grass

Weeds That Can Harm

There are a few weeds that are poisonous and should definitely not be eaten in any amount. These include Water hemlock, the plant famously used to kill Socrates, and Jimson weed, sometimes called devil weed.

There are also a couple of plants that have been eaten for centuries that modern scientific analysis now informs us are, in fact, toxic.

Comfrey, it turns out, can cause severe liver damage and cancer.

Pokeweed leaves have long been valued as a spring tonic in both the US and Europe. A complicated procedure involving long boiling and double rinsing makes the leaves nearly safe to eat. But Pokeweed can cause severe poisoning if it is not treated properly, and there are always much safer options available.

Until you know the weeds pretty well, it makes sense to stick to a few that you know are edible, nutritious and tasty. Knowledgeable neighbors, foraging workshops, and books can help provide the confidence you need.

Seeing some of your weeds as free leafy vegetables instead of dreaded invaders can make your garden seem like more of a playground and less of a battlefield. And if you are OK with them being there, they aren’t weeds anymore.

Thanks for watching.

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