Do you have time to tear up weeds from the garden?
For sure, no one wants to do this job every week but letting them grow results in decreased growth of desired plants.
If you want to minimize the growth of weed, you should remove it as early as possible. Besides physically removing weed, you can adopt these strategies to prevent it from growing.
Although weeds are also plants, these unwanted plants compete with the desired flora and absorb nutrition from the soil. Due to the nutrient absorption by the weed, minerals and other nutrients remain unavailable for the plant you want to grow.
What are weeds?
Weeds are unwanted or undesirable plants that grow within the farm field, lawn, or garden. There is no classification for weeds an intruder that has not sown but grows naturally can be called weeds.
Some weeds commonly observed in the field include amaranth or pigweed, bermudagrass, bindweed, dandelion, and clover.
How do plants get affected by weed?
The undesired weeds can affect the plant in two different ways, either it hurts the plant by absorbing nutrients from its body or makes the soil unfavorable for desired plants.
The weed competes with the plant and slows down the growth of the desired plant.
While the other type of weeds invade inside the plant body and suck nutrients from the host plant resulting in the plant’s death. These harmful weeds are also known as injurious or noxious weeds, and they grow on the farm due to mismanagement.
To save your plants from weed, you need to take some weed prevention strategies. If it has grown unintentionally, you can use organic weed killers. According to https://www.growingherbsforbeginners.com/, vinegar, lemon juice, and boiling water are effective weed killers.
Tips to control weed from growing
The weeds can not grow in the field if you adopt the correct cultivation procedure. The tips for preventing weed growth are:
Precaution before cultivation
Tilling is necessary for cultivating a high yield of the crop, but it might be the reason for weed growth. When you perform unnecessary tilling, the dormant seed comes to the soil surface and gets light, water, and air, and starts producing seedlings. If you want to prevent weed growth, avoid unnecessary tilling.
Cover with mulch
Mulch is the decaying organic material that is beneficial for plants and also prevents weed growth. Mulch covers the land, so the seeds inside the soil do not get light, thus ward off the germination of weed seed.
Mulch also keeps the soil moist, so the plant grows effectively. The mulch should not be coarse or else, the light slowly seeps in, and weeds start growing.
Manage the space between the plant
Growing the plant without leaving free space is another perfect strategy for weed prevention. Weeds love to grow in sunny areas where maximum light reaches, shady areas stop the seed germination of intruding plants.
Plants grown in closed spaces do not allow the light to reach the soil. It is a good practice to grow plants in squares rather than forming rows. Try to stick to recommended spacing so every plant grows freely without acquiring the disease.
Application of pre-emergent
The well-known best-to-use pre-emergent is corn-gluten that comes from corn milling. It is an organic herbicide that is used to prevent weeds like crabgrass and dandelion. It is useless to spread corn-gluten over pre-developed weed. It is used to control weeds, not to kill them.
Corn-gluten hinders root formation, so if weed seed germinates and seedling sprouts out from the seed, it will soon die. As corn-gluten stops root development, so it should not be spread when the root of the desired crop is forming. Managing the time of pre-emergent applications is mandatory.
Organic weed killer
You can use natural or organic material for weed killing. Some weed killing agents are:
- Vinegar contains acetic acid and has an effective plant-killing ability, so it works best for weed killing.
- Table salt can also kill weeds when mixed with hot water.
- Lemon juice is an active weed-killing agent having acidic properties.
- Boiled water is the cheapest, easy to apply, and eco-friendly weed killer. It does not create any negative impact on soil.
Commercial weed killer for preventing weed
Commercial weed killers are suggested to the farmers and gardeners who are cultivating large areas. For the stubborn weed, natural anti-weeding agents may not affect, these commercial weed killers work best for such intruders.
The few best commercial weed killers include RM43 weed preventer, Ortho Groundclear vegetation killer, and RM18 fast-acting weed killer. You just need to put the required amount of chemical over the pull behind weed sprayer and sprinkle it over the weeds.
The bottom line
Weeds are the unwanted plant that grows on the field if its seed gets water, light, and air. Weed is the biggest issue for the gardener or farmer. It hurt the growth of the crop plant by absorbing its nutrients.
You can prevent the growth of these intruders by applying pre-emergent on the soil. Some commercial or natural products can effectively kill the weed without hurting plant growth if used at the right time and in the appropriate amount.
