2. Smother weeds with a thick bed planting instead of row planting. Turnip greens, peas, buckwheat, and flax are especially suited for thick planting. Buckwheat is especially suited for the fall and turnip, pea, and flax are best planted in the very early spring before weed seeds will sprout.

3. Mulch slow growing or narrow leaved crops such as root crops, asparagus, and squash. Crops grown from seed instead of transplant may need to be cultivated at first until they are large enough to mulch. Or grow winter rye/ barley grass and stalk chop it down after it blooms in the spring and use it as mulch. This only works well if the next crop is a warm season planting, such as squash.

4. Pile wood chips for several months before using them as mulch to allow at least some partial decomposition. Never use fresh wood chips as mulch since they will rob nitrogen from the garden as they start decomposing.

5. Use only non-food or limited use seeds as cover crops: fava, vetch, barley, rye, and sorghum.

6. Grow the primary allelopathic food crops; wheat, oats, brassica, sunflower, and sweet potato. These are food crops that also help control weeds. But avoid using these crops for mere cover as much as possible, since they are primarily consumed for food.

7. Winter barley and rye are not always appropriate as cover crops because they require flowering next year before they can be killed.

8. Use Chinese weeder geese to control grass weeds. Portable fencing may be necessary to keep them out of the grain crops.

9. In the fall, after harvest, turn animals out on the stubble to suppress weeds and speed crop residue decomposition.

10. Allelopathic mulch materials: walnut shells and sunflower shells are very powerful, so only use on garden borders, far from plants. Do not use inside the garden.

11. Do not plant invasive or self seeding plants inside the garden: (fennel, dill, burdock, jerusalem artichoke, comfrey, horseradish, dandelion, etc.)

12. Spreading several feet of extremely fresh manure over the soil and allowing it to decompose for several months will kill all weed seeds in the top several inches.

ATTRA weed management
Manitoba Gov. - weed control, cover crops
SARE - Steel in the Field

Garden For Nutrition Index