If it feels like you’re constantly fighting weeds in your yard, here’s one thing I’ve learned: The only way to outsmart weeds is to be strategic about them. Removal is just one part of it—you also have to keeping them from coming back.
None of us want to spend time on our hands and knees pulling weeds all day. But with a few simple strategies, you can effectively manage the weeds in your garden and stop working so hard for your harvest.
This is what I do every year to keep annual weeds under control (besides pick and eat them—yes, some of those annoying weeds are actually edible!).
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1. Weed when the weeding’s good.
This means getting to your weeds when they’re small and easy to remove, and doing it when the soil is soft and forgiving (usually in spring, but any time after a good rain is prime opportunity).
Did you know?
That fresh earthy smell after a nice rain comes from geosmin, an organic compound produced by soil-dwelling bacteria. When you take a whiff of geosmin, it naturally triggers feelings of happiness and peace—which is why being in the garden is so therapeutic.
Set aside a few minutes every day to go outside and simply observe your garden. This helps you spot any new weeds that pop up so you can pull them right away. When they’re small, they haven’t had time to establish roots and they haven’t gone to seed, making them pretty innocuous as far as weeds go.
That means you can just leave the pulled weeds on top of the soil and repurpose them into mulch, or drop the weeds onto your garden paths, where they’ll get walked on, rained on, and eventually composted into the ground.
2. Use the stale seedbed technique.
You know how weeds always seem to get worse after a rain? The stale seedbed technique uses that same concept to your advantage.
Before you plant vegetable crops in a new garden bed, water the soil thoroughly so that the first half-inch is saturated. Wait a week or two for all the errant weeds to sprout, then pull them by hand or hoe them shallowly. (Weed seeds generally only grow if they’re in the top inch of soil.)
Sow or transplant without disturbing the soil more than necessary. Or if you really want to make the seedbed “stale,” you can repeat the process before sowing or planting.
3. Don’t pull your weeds—cut them.
As gardeners, our first instinct when we see a weed in the ground is to rip it out. This may be fine for small weeds, but if it’s a big weed (like the one below), then all that upturned soil probably just brought dormant weed seeds to the surface, giving them a chance at life (and reducing the effectiveness of the mulch in that spot).
So if you want to avoid creating future weeds, cut—don’t pull—them.
Recommended
Hori hori knife
This versatile Japanese soil knife can cut, weed, scoop, dig, or transplant. It’s one of my most-used gardening tools!
Use a hori hori knife to slice the plant just below the stems and into the top part of the roots, like this:
Make sure you cut below the crown (the part where the stems and roots meet), because some weeds may sprout new leaves if the crown is left intact.
Discard the plant but leave the roots in the ground where they are. As the roots decompose, they add valuable organic matter to the soil and help feed the soil food web
While this is an effective way to manage annual weeds, it won’t work for perennial weeds that grow from rhizomes (like quackgrass) or those that regrow from root fragments (like common mallow).
4. Stop turning over your soil.
Every time you turn or disturb the soil (through tilling, digging, or raking deeply), you stir up dormant weed seeds. Once they’re brought to the surface and exposed to sunlight and moisture, they have everything they need to germinate and grow.
That’s why I’m a fan of no-till gardening: not only does it let sleeping weeds lie, it’s a lot less work too. So if you don’t have to dig, just spread a couple inches of compost on top of the soil and make the minimum planting trench or planting hole you need.
5. Mulch, mulch, mulch.
Here’s the thing with soil: If you don’t cover it with something, nature will take over and cover it with whatever blows in. So don’t leave your dirt naked!
Spread a layer of straw, wood chips, fall leaves, compost (yes, it’s a mulch), or any of these organic mulch options over bare soil to suppress weeds and reduce soil-borne diseases.
All those other weeds you just pulled out of the ground? If they haven’t gone to seed, you can simply drop them on top of the soil and turn them into mulch, too. (I even do this with the stems I prune from my tomato plants—they go right next to the plants instead of a dedicated compost pile.)
6. Plant your garden beds intensively.
The more room your desired plants take up, the less room there is for weeds to germinate and grow. So if you don’t want to mulch your beds, use the plants themselves as a “living mulch” to cover the empty spaces in between.
When crops are planted intensively, they outcompete weeds as well as shade the soil and help conserve moisture. But it’s not just a matter of spacing your plants closer together; planting intensively can also mean interplanting strategically.
For example, you can plant a low-growing crop (say, trailing nasturtiums) as a living mulch around a taller crop (tomatoes). In this example, nasturtiums work as a trap crop to lure aphids away from your valuable tomato crop, and their nectar-rich flowers also attract beneficial insects.
Or, you can grow dense patches of heat-tolerant lettuce under a cucumber trellis. The lettuce helps suppress weeds while the cucumber vines give lettuce some midday shade to delay their bolting.
7. Don’t let weeds go to seed.
This is one of the easiest ways to manage weeds in your garden: Don’t let them go to seed! Or you’ll end up with hundreds (if not thousands) of weedy volunteers next year.
If a weed has already formed seeds, carefully cut the seed head and put the seeds or the whole plant in the trash (or in another part of the yard where you don’t mind weeds). Avoid weed whacking or mowing in an area where weeds have already gone to seed, because you’ll end up distributing the seeds far and wide.
8. Don’t compost weeds that have gone to seed.
I always recommend discarding weeds with seed heads in the trash, because most home compost piles don’t get hot enough to destroy weed seeds.
To effectively break down organic matter, including seeds, a compost pile needs to reach an internal temperature of 140°F. It also needs to be turned regularly so the cooler outer materials (where seeds may be) get moved into the center where it’s hottest.
Most people, however, maintain cold compost piles where seeds can sometimes still germinate. So if this is you, skip the headache and dispose of weed seeds in the trash or in your municipal yard waste can.
9. Never leave your garden beds empty at the end of the season.
Garden beds should be covered with something year-round. If your crops are done for the season, grow a winter-hardy cover crop in their place. If you don’t want to grow anything else, add some mulch on top (which can be a couple inches of compost, a thick layer of straw, or even a pile of the old plants you just cut back).
This way, when you’re ready to plant again the following season, you’ve already added some good organic matter to the soil and you’re not battling weeds that have blown in over fall and winter.
