No grass gardening! This is contradictory, impossible, right? Well, my garden may not be 100% weed-free, but they are 100% weed-free.
I achieved this state of happiness in four ways: 1) Never till or otherwise disturb the soil, so dormant weed seeds stay dormant, away from light and air; 2) Designate permanent areas for walking and planting, To avoid compaction and farming; 3) Maintain a thin layer of weed-free organic material to extinguish any weed seeds that are blown by birds or fall into the garden; 4) Use drip irrigation when watering is needed to avoid Promote weed growth between trails and large spacing plants. These are the basis for keeping my garden free of weed problems. Over the years, I have honed some details of this weed-free gardening system, and I want to share with you.
One particularly good aspect of this weed-free gardening system is how much it simplifies fertilization. I rarely use commercial fertilizers. It's not that my plants don't need food, but the slow and steady decomposition of organic mulch meets most of my plant's nutritional needs.
Where additional nitrogen may be needed, I use soybean meal to supplement the diet of young trees, shrubs, and densely planted vegetables. Soybean meal is cheap, can be easily bought at farms and feed stores, and only needs to be applied once a year. From late autumn to late winter, the nitrogen in soybean meal does not leak out of the soil during the cold months, but starts to release as the water and warmth of spring wake hungry plants. For plants that often require additional nitrogen, I sprinkle 1 to 2 pounds per 100 square feet. Other meals, such as cottonseed or alfalfa meal, can be used similarly, but they are usually more expensive.
If your soil is naturally barren, you may need to use other nutrients as fertilizer, such as phosphorus and potassium, until the organic mulch decomposes and stores these nutrients in the soil. Bone meal, seaweed and wood ash are all good sources of phosphorus and potassium.
Because most of the fertility of my garden comes from organic mulch, I will customize the mulch I use according to the needs of specific plants. Usually, this only involves using nutrient-rich mulch for heavy breeders and other mulch for light eaters. The two nutrient-rich mulches for my vegetables are compost and grass clippings; I make these two at home.
If you are not suitable for making your own weed-free compost, you can usually buy high-quality bulk compost locally. I often spread a thin layer of grass clippings on the compost on the vegetable bed. The thin layer of grass clippings helps to stifle any weed seedlings that survive the compost and keep the compost moist, making the nutrients in it easier to obtain. However, be careful when using grass clippings from your neighbors. I discovered this with difficulty 30 years ago because I watched my potato vines wither overnight after using clippings from a lawn treated with herbicides.
Sawdust or leaves (whole or chopped) are good mulch, suitable for plants that are not particularly heavy for feeders, such as mature trees and shrubs, most flowers (delphiniums and roses are notable exceptions) ), and almost all other plants. I get wood chips from a local arborist, "harvest" bags of leaves from my neighbors, and they call me when needed-I occasionally supplement this supply with a truckload of leaves from a local gardener.
Over the years, I have become more and more interested in living mulch, also known as cover crops-plants that are specially planted to protect and improve the soil. Like traditional mulches, cover crops can suppress weeds, enrich the soil with humus, increase the availability of nutrients, and add nitrogen to the soil in the case of legume cover crops.
The two major advantages of using cover crops as mulch are that the cover crop roots improve the soil as they grow and die, and you only need to bring a small bag of seeds to the garden instead of dragging a garden cart full of bulky materials.
You can set aside part of the garden for the cover crops for the current season, or try my method: plant cover crops for the cool season again in late summer and early fall. Because I never cultivate the soil, I plant cover crops such as oats, peas, and barley, which will naturally succumb to the cold in the winter in New York. By the end of winter, I just raked the stems and leaves on top of the soil, leaving intact dead roots and the countless passages they created.
It is also possible to use crops that will not overwinter naturally. Simply prune them when they are about to bloom, or treat them by repeated pruning. To learn about the best options in your area, download "Manage Cover Crops Profitably". To order cover crop seeds by mail, please contact Peaceful Valley Farm Supply or Johnny's Selected Seeds.
Drip irrigation helps to keep my garden free of weeds because it does not water weeds on paths or between rows like regular sprinklers. Slowly dripping water into the root zone of the crop can also save water. In fact, the drip irrigation system can achieve 95% application efficiency and save up to 75% of the water used in the sprinkler system.
You can buy drip irrigation system installation kits at garden centers, hardware stores, and home improvement stores. For larger systems, consider hiring landscape professionals. A basic drip irrigation system consists of five elements:
1. Feed pipe. Often called "transmitter" or "drip tape" because it is flattened and sold in rolls. These tubes are made of black polyethylene plastic with holes spaced at regular intervals, even when altitude and water pressure change. It can also dispense water at a relatively constant speed. For plants with wide spacing, a single transmitter can be inserted into the main pipe as needed.
2. Main pipeline. Also called a side line, this pipe connects the water supply to the water supply pipe.
3. Accessories. You will need various accessories, such as valves, connectors, and end caps to connect irrigation lines, close them, control the flow of water and prevent it from returning to the main water source.
4. Filter. Sand filters or screen filters suck impurities from the main water supply to prevent clogging of the feed pipe.
5. Pressure regulator. A spring or valve regulator helps to reduce the water pressure in the water supply pipe.
I use a drip irrigation system for parts of the garden that require regular watering, such as vegetables and young blueberry bushes.
In my vegetable garden, I laid a half-inch mainline pipe on the bed perpendicular to the 3-foot-wide bed. Then I inserted a quarter-inch barb transfer fitting and connected the quarter-inch feed tube and extended it down the length of the bed. The tubes have emitters at 6-inch intervals, and each dripper drops half a gallon of water per hour. For wider beds, drier climates, or places with light soil, you may need to lay two drip pipes under each bed.
Young blueberry bushes need at least 1 inch of water a week because of their shallow root system. To water them, I laid a half-inch mainline pipe along a row of plants, and then inserted a quarter-inch barbed transfer fitting into the mainline pipe of each bush. I connected a short quarter-inch solid pipe to the main pipe. At the end of the main pipe is a dripper that drips half a gallon of water at the root of each bush every hour. For more information about drip irrigation systems, please read "Irrigation Made Easy", August/September 2002.
Weeds constantly threaten to invade the edges of any garden. The most straightforward way to stop the invasion of weeds is to grab them with your hands and pull them out. I also use a winged weeder hoe to maintain a 6-inch wide bare soil "Machino Line" around my garden section. The hoe has a sharp blade, and when you use it, it is parallel to the ground. In a more formal part of the garden, I created a low-maintenance weed barrier with half cinder blocks lying flat on top of each other in a suitable shallow depression so that I can run the wheels of the lawn mower along it.
If you have ever cut the top of a dandelion with a hoe, you will know that they will soon sprout from their strong roots again. To eliminate the possibility of reappearance, I pulled out these weeds individually to make sure that their tops and their roots are together.
When a group of young weed seedlings have sprouted, it would be too cumbersome to remove one weed at a time. When this happens, I recommend using a hoe to kill the seedlings. I think the traditional gardening hoe that most gardeners hang in the garage is much better at mixing concrete than weeding. A better choice is a collinear hoe, a stirrup hoe or a winged weeder (see photos in the image library). Use a winged weeder to perform a few simple strokes (such as mopping the floor) back and forth, just under a hair on the soil surface, you can quickly complete the work, and you will hardly sweat.
For larger areas, such as my brick terrace and under fruit trees, I use herbicides—not toxic substances on the shelves of nurseries and hardware stores, but household vinegar (5% to 6%). For maximum effect, I spray vinegar on small plants because they have weaker root systems and fewer leaves "shaded" by the spray. The formed weeds will re-grow new leaves after spraying vinegar, but if the leaves are killed many times, the plants will eventually starve to death.
You can increase the spread and adhesion of the vinegar on the leaves by adding 1 tablespoon of detergent and 2 tablespoons of rapeseed oil to each gallon of vinegar. Vinegar is most effective at temperatures above 70 degrees. Although it can burn almost any green plant, it is most effective on grass. At the beginning of the season, once the weather gets warmer, spray once a week, and then gradually do it once every two weeks or once a month according to the weather and the growth of weeds.
My last attack on weeds requires (dare I say?) regular weeding. When I walk through the garden, and when I harvest and plant, I will weed or pull weeds here and there. Think of your hoe as your walking stick. For all the negative connotations of weeding, I think this is part of a pleasant visit to the garden, probably because the few weeds I have these days are neither fierce nor fierce.
Original publication time: June/July 2007
Yesterday I saw the recipe for the herbicide 1 gallon of vinegar, 2 cups of Epson salt and ????.
This is a good article about grass-free gardening. I can't wait to give it a try.
When I misplaced the magazine, I can find male articles on the Internet, I love it! ! ! I like you in KS!
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