Weeds

[~Obsidian~]

Scenario: You're growing or preparing to grow your beautiful fruit and veg plants, or your prized flowers. Everything would be fine, apart from those darn weeds that keep popping up!

Weeds are commonly seen as the enemy, they could harbour pests and diseases, strangle or deprive your plants of water, and can just be downright unsightly!

But there is a positive aspect to them too.

Weeds can be good food for the compost heap, they could possess herbal properties and can also be used as an indicator of your soil type/light abundance, and the other biotic factors of your growing environment.

More to come soon InshAllah

[Hannah_B]

My mum hates weed, we spray them with weed killers, they make our tiles look fugly ewww.

[Kirsten]

re: compost pile, it might be a good idea to shred them or something like that first, so they don't start proliferating like crazy in your compost pile instead :) I haven't had this happen to me, but have heard stories (i.e. toss a dandelion gone to seed in there...)

[Riz]

i have come a full circle first seeing weeds in the garden really annoyed me, but now i have given into "nature" and i come to think of them as just plants in the garden.. :)

tis the best way :)

ps.. if they get anywhere near my veg patch, i consider that as an " all out attack" and a breach of my human rights.... :D

and then its WAR !!!

[farah]

weeds :mad: they've all of a sudden sprouted all over the lawn - does anyone know any weed killers that aren't harmful to the environment or do they have to be super strong because the roots go very deep? Alhumdalilah the council provides every household with a massive garden waste bin and I managed to fill most of it with weeds and branches but with roots so deep they're likely to sprout up again soon? Its really putting me of planting in the ground any advice would be appreciated! :)

[Riz]

^ yeah

with the weeds you have to take out the "taproot" which is buried in the ground and if you dont they just grow back bigger and stronger,, its best to pull them out whole this way they wont come back.. I have given up with the weeds and just pull out the ones that are too close to my veg seedlings...

it hasnt put me of planting in the ground though,, i think its ok, still get a decent yield at the end of it,, so dont stress it so much, :)

[dhakiyya]

find a neighbour with a pet rabbit, feed the weeds to the rabbit, then harvest the rabbit droppings to use as compost.

someone needs to breed a pet that likes to eat weeds but doesn't like to eat the plants that you want to grow. then you can just let it loose in the garden, eating the weeds and pooing fertiliser into the soil for the plants you want.

[farah]

Hmm I've been trying to convince the family we need to move in a giant German rabbit I could try using ^ that as a convincing argument...

[TRUREL]

This year in the flower beds I have put bark chip and it has made weed control 80% easier.

[Riz]

^ yep it sure does :GreenThumbs:

[Psypomp]

In the past few weeks, grass has been growing in my garden patch. The sad thing is, the grass is long, luscious and beautiful, but not wanted!

The best solution to getting rid of weeds is simply by pulling them up. There are several methods of killing them-- pouring boiling water over them, vinegar, burning them, etc-- but in a garden, this is dangerous for other plants & makes the soil inhabitable. So every time I go to water the plants, I pull up a few handfuls of the grass & other weeds, and eventually it will clear up.

[Nife180]

In the past few weeks, grass has been growing in my garden patch. The sad thing is, the grass is long, luscious and beautiful, but not wanted!

The best solution to getting rid of weeds is simply by pulling them up. There are several methods of killing them-- pouring boiling water over them, vinegar, burning them, etc-- but in a garden, this is dangerous for other plants & makes the soil inhabitable. So every time I go to water the plants, I pull up a few handfuls of the grass & other weeds, and eventually it will clear up.

Not really, The soil gets better if you burn or put vinegar on it. When you burn it, you put more potash in the soil, and putting vinegar helps as hard water raises the pH but vinegar counteracts this.

Putting boiling water doesn't affect the soil, as it cools soon. But it does kill the insects & microbes, which re-colonize after it has cooled anyway.

[Psypomp]

I didn't know that! I guess it makes sense, since some plants thrive in acidic soil. Maybe I'll try burning some of my weeds, then.

[Nife180]

Not to much vinegar though, as long as the pH doesn't fall below 5 it's all good.

[farah]

:goodpost: never thought of burning the weeds

[Riz]

^ its a great excuse for a fire in the garden.

:90

[abu thaabit]

cut them at the root, that wont disturb the soill, then compost them/feed them to the worms, and the fact that a weed pops up means your not using that spot, add some herbs to the spot, comfrey, rosemary, basil etc :rollj:

[Harjun]

find a neighbour with a pet rabbit, feed the weeds to the rabbit, then harvest the rabbit droppings to use as compost.

someone needs to breed a pet that likes to eat weeds but doesn't like to eat the plants that you want to grow. then you can just let it loose in the garden, eating the weeds and pooing fertiliser into the soil for the plants you want.

Lol thats really true because we have a weeds on the lawn, and because i live in the countryside... if you even look out the window, there is a 100% chance you will see 2 or 3 rabbits. Thus, there is an abundance of rabbit poo in my garden, but they are very civilized, they all do the poo in the same place all the time in the corner of the garden so no one complains

:ty:rabbits :D

Riz, you seem to love fires in the garden, you should see some of the bonfires we do at my house because recently we had the whole hedge cut back a bit and a few trees cut down, and there was an absolutely massive fire when we torched all the remains of the trees etc. i shoulda taken pics im surre u would have loved it :D