Gardening Information
Organic Weed Control: 

1. Control weeds with mechanical cultivation for large leaved crops, such as collards, kale, okra, beans, and sunflower. Eventually, the canopy will shade out weeds.

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. Turnip, pea, and flax are best planted in the very early spring before weed seeds will sprout.

3. Mulch slow growing or narrow leaved annual crops such as root crops 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 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, so you can wait until the rye blooms. ( Mulch brings several added advantages. It increases soil bio-activity which helps to automatically aerate the soil. )

4. Pile wood chips for several months before using them as mulch to allow at least some partial decomposition. Never use fresh wood chips directly on the soil 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 (C4).

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.

13. Most weeds need to be cut only after fully blooming and before seeding to kill them by cutting. If they are cut before fully bloomimg, they will only keep trying to bloom.

14. Allow animals to graze between orchard rows.

EFAO News
University of Idaho

15. Not all weeds are bad. For example, some weeds should be allowed to grow along side brassica to support mycorrhizal fungus for the next crop.

Joseph A. Cocannouer

16. The only time that weeds critically affect yield for most crops is within the first few of weeks (Critical Period of Interferance).

North Carolina State University
University of Florida

17. I prefer the Hoss wheel hoe because steel wheels support the hoe better and do not tend to sink into the soil. That seems to cause less friction, so I work less. If your soil has a lot of clay, a weasel may actually work better. Unfortunately, there is no weasel attachment yet.

Hoss Wheel Hoe
Garden Weasel

18. Always mulch perennials.

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

Garden For Nutrition Index