Weeding in the Vegetable Garden: Our Methods | Terra Potager

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• Learn to harvest all year round
• Shop
  • Our calendar/almanac
  • Our ACD greenhouses
  • The vegetable garden review
  • Order seeds
  • Gardening products, fertilizers
  • Online course 'I succeed with my tomatoes'
• Vegetable garden tips
• Topics
  • Succeeding with your sowing and plants
  • Soil: amendments, fertilizers, compost
  • Vegetable garden techniques
  • Pests in the vegetable garden
  • Growing vegetables
  • Flowers, aromatic and medicinal plants, biodiversity
• Connect
• Contact

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Weeding in the vegetable garden is probably one of the most tedious, monotonous, and time-consuming tasks to perform. Therefore, all methods and tips to limit this constraint are welcome 😉

It is well known that nature abhors a vacuum! As soon as the soil is bare, it hastens to colonize it.

The soil is a vast reservoir of seeds, and as soon as the conditions are right (light, temperature, humidity), the seeds contained in the soil begin to germinate. These are called weeds, more commonly referred to as “bad herbs.”

These wild plants are naturally better adapted than our cultivated plants. They are more vigorous and more resilient. If we let them invade our flower beds, they can quickly take over our crops and develop at their expense.

Weeding then becomes inevitable. A war ensues between the gardener and these plants that want to colonize every empty space! Fortunately, several tips can help reduce this weeding chore. Here are our favorites that have proven effective in our gardens.

Summary

• A little common sense rule about weeding
• How to weed?
• Limit weeding through mulching: the best method
• Tarping: another very effective weeding method
• The cardboard/chips technique
• Planting rather than sowing
• False sowing to limit weeding
• The good old hoe: unbeatable
• Testimonials on weeding in the vegetable garden

A little common sense rule about weeding

The earlier you weed, the easier the seedlings will be to pull up. This general principle will save you hours of "catch-up" weeding. Remember this rule; it is always valid. 😉

How to weed?

For small areas, you can use hand tools: a hoe, of course, but also a hand rake; the choice is plentiful. Note that there are also long-handled weeding tools available online or in stores that allow you to weed while standing.

It’s up to you based on your preferences. Note that once you start mulching your crops, the need for weeding is so reduced that the use of these tools becomes almost obsolete! 🙂

Limit weeding through mulching: the best method

As mentioned in the introduction, weed seeds in the soil only germinate if favorable conditions are met, particularly light, moisture, and temperature. Beyond its many other advantages, sufficiently thick mulch can block light at the soil level, thereby limiting the emergence of unwanted weeds.

However, some perennials may still find a way to the surface. But the soil, kept soft and moist under the mulch, will allow for much easier removal.

Mulching is therefore THE method that will allow you to reduce your weeding in the vegetable garden by 90%, for sure.

Now, there remains a challenge: finding mulch. If you can't find enough, you will have to weed more... Think of your trees and shrubs. You can cut branches to mulch the soil. Also consider tarps, which are also a form of (non-organic) mulch. We will discuss that below.

Go further: • Weeding with mulch: a complete article on how to weed using mulch and easily create new cultivation areas • Mulching in the vegetable garden

Tarping: another very effective weeding method

Tarps are particularly unsightly. Many gardeners refuse to use them for this reason. Plastic tarps are made from petrochemicals, making them a questionable material for those concerned about the sustainability of their practices. That said, they can be repurposed from used materials, thus recycling waste.

Get them for free

It is easy to use recycled materials to cover certain areas of your vegetable garden. Used silage tarps can be obtained from farmers who will be happy to get rid of them. As professionals, they have to pay to dispose of their waste at the dump. For smaller areas, old empty potting soil bags, cut and laid on the ground with the black side facing out, can serve as makeshift tarps.

How does it work?

The action of the tarp is the same as that of mulching. It is even more effective because it completely blocks light and retains heat, which allows it to “burn” any weeds that manage to sprout.

How to weed an area of the vegetable garden with a tarp?

A tarping period of several months, especially during the growing season (from March to October), allows you to clear the area of existing unwanted herbs. If you can leave it for a year, even better: you will achieve complete weeding.

So to save time and successfully reset your weeding area, we recommend combining the useful with the pleasant: cultivate while you weed 😉

Some plants are particularly suited to cultivation on tarps, especially heat-loving plants. Think of cucurbits (squash, zucchini, melons, watermelons, etc.) or sweet potatoes, for example.

Cultivating on a tarp involves planting in holes punched in the tarp, which mechanically prevents weeds from growing between the plants. This technique is widely used by professional market gardeners. It can also suit home gardeners, especially those in cooler regions with short seasons where some heat-loving crops sometimes struggle to mature. Indeed, tarps retain heat and warm the soil with the slightest ray of sunshine. It may be unsightly but effective!

So you can start your tarp cultivation. And when you remove the tarp six months to a year later, your plot will be clean underneath, well weeded 😉 In the following seasons, you will have the option not to use a tarp or to rotate your plots to completely clean them cyclically, every three or four years, for example.

The cardboard/chips technique

This weeding method is often used for pathways but works very well for weeding cultivation areas. Weeding with cardboard is highly favored in permaculture!

It involves covering the area with cardboard (preferably unprinted, free of sticky strips and plastic coatings to avoid introducing pollutants into the soil).

After that, cover the cardboard with a good layer of wood chips. The cardboard plays the same role as the tarp by blocking light. However, it is biodegradable. It eventually decomposes completely after suffocating the existing vegetation. The chips placed on top then act as mulch, mechanically blocking the regrowth of unwanted plants. This exhausts them.

It is preferable to use cardboard of French origin. Cardboards that have traveled long distances may have been treated with fungicides or insecticides, harmful to soil life. French standards also require the use of plant-based glues for assembling cardboards, unlike other countries.

Planting rather than sowing

It seems logical, but we don't always think of it: by planting an already advanced crop, it will be able to compete with weeds. Indeed, it will start several weeks ahead of the young seedlings that will germinate. You will generally need to intervene once or twice on the crop, and it will eventually occupy all the space.

False sowing to limit weeding

What is false sowing? It involves pretending to sow your area, but without the seeds 😉

You prepare your cultivation area, water it, and leave it unsown. Ten days later, weeds will have germinated.

You can then use a tool: rake, hoe, or another. This will destroy the weeds most likely to germinate alongside your crop. Once this weeding is done (preferably in warm weather), you can leave the soil bare in the sun for a day or two. The weeds will “burn” and dry out. Finally, you can come and sow in your cultivation area, and you will have significantly fewer weeds per square meter. 😉

However, this technique is slightly time-consuming. We simply prefer the blocking method with mulch. It remains very effective for carrots, for example, and for everything you sow after removing the mulch (spinach, lettuce, radishes, etc.).

The good old hoe: unbeatable

Do you have crops on bare soil? Use a hoe, as the vast majority of gardeners did before widespread mulching. This tool allows you to remain standing and is formidable against weeds. Just pass it regularly. Additionally, it breaks the crust of compaction, which limits evaporation of water present in the soil. A weekly pass, until the crop occupies the space, will be perfectly sufficient. This is definitely the best solution for weeding on unmulched soil.

Testimonials on weeding in the vegetable garden

The Mediterranean climate offers us a bit of respite for several months of the year when it comes to weeding. Due to a significant lack of water from June to September, grass grows little and only where we target watering. However, one should not believe...