Here we are, well into July and have progressed this far in the garden with all of our planting, fertilizing, controlling pests and so on. It takes a lot of work to keep up a garden and it’s easy to get distracted by other summer time activities… the pool, the lake, golf.
Make sure you are diligent in keeping up with your weeding because weeds grow extremely fast this time of season and can overtake your garden if you are not careful. This is especially a problem for those who take a week or two vacation during the summer only to return home to find their formally spotless garden full of weeds once again.
These weeds will drastically reduce the onion yeild unless they are removed soon.
Many garden crops cannot compete very well with weeds and need to be kept weed-free throughout the season if you hope to get a crop this fall. Onions are an example of a crop won’t produce well under weedy conditions.
Mulching your garden will go a long way in helping to keep the weeds down even if you don’t get all of the garden covered. If you do decide to mulch, remove the existing weeds to keep them from growing and pushing up through your mulch.
Mulching will reduce the amount of weeding that you will need to do.
There are many types of materials that can be used for mulch such as straw, shredded leaves, hay, grass clippings, paper, plastic, old carpeting etc. The idea is to cover the soil so that no sunlight will reach the surface of the garden. Since most weed seeds need sunlight to sprout, they won’t grow into a problem for you.
Perennial weeds such as quack grass or morning glory are harder to suppress with mulch but even they can be greatly reduced.
The main idea is keep up with your weeding, don’t let it get out of hand and it will stay manageable.
Bob
You have a good looking garden! I have done both mulched and bare-ground gardening, and have come to prefer bare-ground and planting in rows. It probably sounds like more weeding hassles, but we use this wheel hoe in our garden and it makes the weeding simple. We just do a quick run through the rows 3x a week. Much faster weeding!
Comment by Nick P. — July 25, 2010 @ 10:41 am