Weeds: Know Your Enemy

[00:00:20] Keith: Hey, Keith Ramsey with garden supply company. We've had a lot of questions recently about weeds how to rid your yard of weeds. And it's a constant problem for sure. The one thing about weeds that I always tell people is, if you just spend a few minutes figuring out what we do have and what the lifecycle is you can actually manage it a little bit better. 

[00:00:56] Most people don't want to delve in that deep, but like vegetables, you get warm season weeds and cool season weeds. And if you know what stage the weeds you're at, or if it's an annual or if it's a perennial. You can actually manage the problem a little bit easier. 

[00:01:10] There's things like chickweed that people come in the middle of spring and they said, I've got chickweed all over my yard and it's choking out my grass and I need to do something with it. And, it is choking out your grass and you do need to do something with it. 

[00:01:23] But the reality is it's not that crazy of a problem because the first hot day it's going to start to fade. it's On its way out. And it's knowing that you need to have the pre-emergence down ahead of that. So you don't get to that point is easier than managing the problem at that point. 

[00:01:38] And once if you're in a house or you're got a garden space and you've, and you start to understand what weed you have and what the life cycle is you can control them a whole lot easier. I always find that to me. Pulling weeds is a relaxing thing. 

[00:01:55] It's, you can walk through the garden and you can pull a handful of weeds until you can't walk through the garden and just pull a handful of weeds. You're raking a wheelbarrow loads of weeds, so it's staying ahead of the problem knowing when to put down pre-emergence.  

[00:02:10] If you put down pre-emergence, you can usually eliminate 90% of the germination and manage the problem and then pulling weeds is not actually painful. And it's something you can do in a short period of time. If you've got a weed problem, if it's a handful of weeds, you pull them before they go to seed. 

[00:02:27] So that you're not dropping new seeds. And then You just don't want them to get, out of control at that point. So you're going to, you're going to pull all the weeds or you're going to rake the weeds out or the other option is spraying them. And people always shy away from spraying, but there's  

[00:02:41] There are many organic sprays out there now that you can use. There's an iron-based product that works extremely well. And broadleaf weeds in you can't spray it on, on and around your plants, but it's not going to affect the roots of the plant. So it goes into the leaves. It's basically a toxic level of iron. 

[00:02:58] So it'll cause the plant to cave in. And then you've added iron to your soil for future say, you're going to have greener plants, which is a benefit. Fatty acids is another one. It basically just Smothers the plant can't take in oxygen.  

[00:03:11] And then there's all kinds of vinegar products on the market. Vinegar works really well. I recommend using a product that's that is the right percentage and something that's made for weeds over just experimenting in your kitchen, because I think people can cook up these recipes and then you don't really know what you're doing to the microbes in the soil. 

[00:03:32] You don't know what you're doing to the worms. So using a product that's labeled that's been tested is not a bad idea. There's a clove based product that does the same thing. It'll, take care of any kind of light weeds not a really serious perennial weeds, but it does a good job. 

[00:03:45] And then there's the standby that everybody's used for years that any more is the scariest thing on the market Roundup. I still think Roundup is a pretty safe product used in moderation. I've used it for years and been around it. I don't see, I don't see it being extremely detrimental in a home garden. 

[00:04:02] More of an issue when it's sprayed over our food in large quantities on farms that they could you'll see it over sprayed into, taking taken out native plants and that kind of thing. And. We're losing pollinators and that kind of stuff, but Roundup in the garden is not something that I'm shying away from. 

[00:04:18] It's something I use in my garden when I need to, otherwise I'm using something that's organic and and I would use it in the, in a perennial. I'd use it in a veggie garden, but I'd use it ahead of season over during, at the point that you've got food in there. And then the other end of that is pre-emergent, you're catching the weeds before the germinate. 

[00:04:35] That's the pre part it's before that seed germinates, you get the pre-emergence out and then it stops that seed from getting to the point where it's going to get a root into the ground and start to grow. And there's an organic option there too. Corn, gluten Corn gluten is a is a product that it'll do exactly what the chemical products do. 

[00:04:55] . It just slows the growth of the cuddle lead, and when it comes out of the seed, the seed will dry up and you'll eliminate probably 90% of the germination. Dimension is a product that we use both for crabgrass and the lawn And for weeds in beds. 

[00:05:11] It's not something that I would use in a veggie garden, but there's two or three different pre emergencies you can use in a veggie garden as well that are labeled for veggie gardens. And don't go into the plant. And then the other part of it is, it's like weeding, but cultivating the soil turning the soil and digging around the plants. 

[00:05:27] That makes a big difference in weed control. When you're in a perennial situation or within trees and shrubs, you can mulch, and mulching it'll either smother out weeds or it keeps the weed seeds from getting to a moist enough space that they can germinate. 

[00:05:40] And all kinds of mulches can be used. You could. You can shred your leaves and use leaf mulch. It's very effective, and it's good for the soil. You can use a Woody-type malt or bark mulch. In a veggie garden, a lot of times, we'll use paper or cardboard. Usually, you can just recycle cardboard from packages or a dumpster. 

[00:05:58] And then You can also buy just cheap rolls of brown paper and roll them out in a row. That does an excellent job because it stays dry. It's going to keep cutting down the light that weeds underneath it will get. And then it just gives you a good, hard walk-in surface in between yours. 

[00:06:16] Get to know the weeds you have and what you have. You can always bag of weed and bring it in. Now we got people that can. They can tell you what you've got and when it needs to be sprayed or when the pre-emergence needs to go out. The more you understand the weeds you're trying to manage, the easier it'll be. 

[00:06:34] Just walk through the garden and pull a handful of weeds. Just keep them under control and managed. And it's not the end of the world to pull a few weeds. We'll see you next time.