How To Keep Weeds from Taking over Your Garden

There is nothing that can destroy or derail the success of a lawn or garden faster than the weeds that can quickly take over the entire area. The key to preventing this from happening begins with making it more difficult for them to grow in the first place. The best way to set up an area in which weeds can't grow as easily is to make sure that it is thoroughly weeded before it is ever tilled or planted. Here are some additional tips for how to prevent weeds from taking over your garden.

As long as the ground is damp or moist, removing or pulling out weeds isn't hard to do. It can be done with a hand weeder or with a hoe. It is important to make sure that any weeds are pulled up by the roots. To prevent further weed growth, avoid putting any weeds that may contain seeds in your compost heap. The warm and moist environment of a compost heap will foster rapid weed growth.

Once you have tilled the area and planted it, you must work to keep them away. There are several rather easy, but very practical ways by which to prevent weed growth in the future. One is by planting grass, ground covers or plants very closely together. If there is no place for the weeds to grow, they will be suffocated before they can even emerge.

There are many materials that work well as a mulch. Compost can be used as a mulch, and it will improve the quality of the soil as it decomposes. Straw can be used as mulch, but that is usually somewhat expensive to use because it is necessary to purchase so much of it. If you save the grass clippings from when you mow your lawn, the grass clippings will work quite well as a free and effective mulching material. Wood chips are effective, but more expensive to purchase, and they take much longer to decompose.

Removing the weeds before planting is essential. After that, you can choose to prevent future growth or take over by planting things closely together, or by mulching the area on a continual basis. The mulch will prevent the weeds from emerging, as long as it is continually reapplied.

Gardeners should take a proactive approach and opt to use methods that don't involve chemicals and that prevent the soil from eroding as fast as it would otherwise. Weeds are capable of leaching precious nutrients out of the soil, and when they do, they will deprive the plants you want to have grow from growing. To keep the weeds from growing back and taking over, it is necessary to get rid of small weeds regularly, and to keep reapplying mulch. Deprive weeds of the environment that is most conducive to their growth and you will make it virtually impossible for them to survive.